A super moon, a king tide and the tail end of a cyclone...(no worries mum...all good)!

We arrived in Nelson and headed to the information site, our routine stop as we travel through NZ. There we found weather warnings for Abel Tasman for the following day and we took the suggestion of starting our exploration with Nelson’s Historic Walk which took us through the city and familiarized us with the local sites/history. On Thursday the area did indeed get rain, with some flash flooding, high winds and road washouts. The damage was noticeable on Saturday in the park as well as the boat trip out to our drop off spot, the seas were not happy. The boat tour takes visitors along side Split Apple Rock, a granite rock that is 135 million years old as well as traveling to a variety of bays dropping off walkers, kayakers and campers, and finally to the most north stop of Totaranui. We toured along side Adele Island looking for some fur seals and were fortunate enough to spot a few.

It’s a beautiful coastline with turquoise water and lush green hills and I was happy to get off the boat and start the walk on solid ground! The Abel Tasman walk is approximately 51km, we completed a portion from Medlands to Anchorage (11km) along a scenic path with some steep edges, beaches, and a swing bridge. There were a few short paths to look out points along the way with the whole trip taking about 4 hours total.

From there we headed to Takaka for a few nights to explore Farewell Spit and Wainui Falls. With every stop the scenery is breathtaking...and locals continue to say it gets better as you travel south!