Hiking our butts off in Abel Tasman NP

Split Apple rock
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Abel Tasman National Park is situated on the very north end of the South Island, and is known for it's fantastic white sand beaches and seal colonies. The popular activity there is to rent a kayak and go up and down the coast looking at wildlife, and camping on the beaches. I thought that would be great fun until I saw a bunch of people paddling their rental kayaks, and realized how difficult it looked. Instead we opted to take a water taxi halfway into the Abel Tasman trail, and from there we tramped back to the beginning which was a 21 kilometer (13 mile) walk. Basically we were out in the middle of nowhere. Anyway, about 30 minutes into the hike we came across a long suspension bridge, which provided a great photo opportunity. I had Brian cross ahead of me, and I took his picture from the other side. As I was crossing back to meet him, I noticed he was deep in conversation with a very young, very pretty girl with a German accent. Geez – I can't leave him home for a minute. Then I realized it was a girl we met about 5 weeks earlier on Nananu Island in Fiji! What a small world! We chatted with her a bit, compared our travels over the last 5 weeks, then continued on our merry way.

Brian on the bridge, the girls coming across behind him yelled at him for crossing when they were
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The hike turned out to be more tiring than anticipated, and by mile 10 we were pooped. And about that same time the rain started. It began as a light mist (spitting is what they call it here in NZ) but picked up speed as we stumbled through the last few miles. We were very happy to see Goldie in the car park.

The hike turned out to be more tiring than anticipated, and by mile 10 we were pooped

The interesting thing about this hike is that the Abel Tasman area has some of the biggest tidal changes in all of NZ. The water level can go up/down by 6 meters (close to 20 feet). When we took the morning water taxi the level was right up to the beach. When we returned after our 5.5 hour walk, they had to drive tractors out over the beach to tow the boats back in. It looked like an entirely different place.

One of the many beaches along the trail
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Anne