Sun 30th Nov Nelson
Today was a fairly lazy day, but it was nice to catch up with my washing and generally just sorting all of my stuff out. I did manage a walk around though and went to the Queens Gardens and all around the town. Back at the hostel I met Chrissy, a lovely girl from Germany who had already been to Australia and was giving us lots of tips about where to find work. She had lived in Melbourne and said that it was definitely a lot easier to find work here than Sydney especially without a visa as there were lots more independent places and the licensing laws were less strict. We chatted for ages and I got as much information out of her as I could, she had worked three waitressing jobs at a time and got paid heaps from it as all cash in hand!
In the afternoon, I sorted my trip to Abel Tasman National park for the following day. I had looked at all the guided tours but all of them were either only a few hours walking or had kayaking in them and they were all really expensive. I wasn't too fussed about the kayaking so left Kate to do the kayak tour whilst I set about planning my own walk. I organised the bus to and from Nelson as well as the water taxi from Kaiteriten to Tonga bay. I was really hoping the estimated travel times for my walk was generous, otherwise I could be stuck overnight in the park with no accommodation. I prepared my packed lunch for the next day, made my tea and got an early night in preparation for the next day.

Mon 1st Dec Abel Tasman National Park

It was a very early start for me, I had to be at the bus station for 6.45am so I had some breakfast and walked into town. The bus from Nelson to Kaiteriten was only a small minibus due to so few people doing that route and I met a Danish girl who was planning on doing the same walk as me. My plan was to get the water taxi to Tonga Bay and walk 26.6km back to Marahau to get the final bus at 5.30pm back to Nelson. The estimated time was eight and a half hours (no stops) to do this in. I only had about seven. I was pretty sure I could do it though, as most walks we had done prior to this had been way over estimated.
I arrived at Kaiteriten at 8.50am as planned and went to get the water taxi, which was scheduled for 9am. I was the last person on the boat as I was there at exactly 9am. I saw Kate and the others as they were leaving from the same spot as me to do the kayak and walk tour. En route to Tonga Bay, we stopped at a few spots, first was split apple rock, which as the name suggests is a natural rock formation surfacing out of the Tasman sea in the shape of a split apple. Funny that. Took some pics and then headed off to the next stop of Sandy Bay to drop off some people. Just before we went into the bay, we headed to Adele Island to see all the seals. Apparently due to the time of year, there weren't a great many females about and just some rather fat looking old men seals as the females were getting ready to give birth. The island stunk of seal poo, which if you've ever smelt is pretty revolting, probably up there with fox poo but multiplied due to all the seals there. They have a pretty easy life, the seals, just lounging around and letting out a bark every now and again if another male seal tries to move in on their rock. Then they just eat and have the occasional dip in the sea. We carried on in the speed boat (I was at the back so getting a bit wet) and the driver pointed out the houses along the coast line of the Park. It is pretty rare for a National Park to have holiday homes within it's grounds but this is due to Abel Tasman (named after the Dutch explorer who arrived here in the 1600's by the way) only being a relatively new National Park. The land had already been sold to these people and so there are now around 100 holiday homes here, with some now worth up to 14 million dollars for a fairly small house! This really is the middle of nowhere, there are no roads to these houses and they can only be reached by boat.
We arrived at Tonga Bay about 10.15am meaning I was already behind my very tight schedule. Plus it started to rain. Undeterred I donned my trusty rain coat and set off passing the Danish girl on the way. She was going pretty slow and I wasn't sure if she realised how long it took to get back but I thought she must have had it planned. The track was easy to follow with some of it inland in the forest and other parts directly next to the coast, there were no short cuts across the bays today though due to the tides. The first 6.6km to Bark Bay was partly uphill but a lovely walk and I got some really good photos. I arrived half an hour ahead of what had been estimated and that's when I began to panic as I had been walking pretty fast and have very long legs don't you know. Even so I kept going, knowing that it was too early in the day to panic (or give up for that matter). I took lots of pictures along the way and didn't really meet that many people, which I was surprised about. It meant that I spent most of the day not talking, a novelty that I really enjoyed! I had a little rest here and admired the view before carrying on to Torrent Bay another 7.5km away. I passed by Sandfly Bay and the swing bridge over the Torrent River, which was beautiful. At Torrent Bay I stopped for my squashed cheese, tomato and vegemite sandwiches that I was actually very grateful for and tasted much better than they looked. I literally stopped for 10 minutes though as I was worried about time, I felt like I was on Challenge Anika or something, only without the shiny lycra suit and the pressure was on! Once I'd stopped I realised that my feet were beginning to ache but I had comfy shoes and knew that once I got going again it wouldn't really hurt. Much. I had now used up half of my time and had more than half of the way still to do.
I kept the pace up, worrying at one point that I had actually gone the wrong way as I was going further and further inland but calming myself by remembering that I hadn't passed any other pathways so it couldn't be wrong. I saw some of the kayaks and had a quick look to see if Kate was amongst them but it must have been another group. I walked on, the sun came out and I passed a rowdy school group of about 50 who were all very cheery and each one of them said hello and thank you as I let them through (in my head I was thinking this was another 5 minutes added to my time). I went along lots of bays including Appletree and Coquille, all the time taking in the stunning scenery. On the final stretch to Marahau I knew I was close but not sure how close, it was nearly 5pm now and I went through moments of yes I'm going to make it and then serious doubts every time I turned a corner to find another long path without Marahau insight. I could finally see it and from somewhere got the energy to walk just that little bit faster. I made it back to the bus stop with 5 minutes to spare. No sign of the Dutch girl though, maybe she'd given up and got the taxi back and an earlier bus. I was very thankful to the comfy seats on the bus and tried to sleep on the way back to Nelson. I got back around 7.30pm and went and bought fish and chips for tea as a treat. I slept well that night after having a nice hot shower and putting plasters on my blisters!