Marahau & the Abel Tasman National Park
26th March 2009
After an easy morning in Kaikoura drinking coffee and reading the paper, we set off towards the Abel Tasman National Park. To be a bit more specific, we were aiming for a placed called Marahau which is just on the southern corner of the park. To anyone following us on the map you would see that this is not exactly en route and involves going through Picton (the Ferry port back to the North Island), and along a fair few roads which we travelled earlier on in our South Island drive. We do have a reason for this though, as when we first arrived in the South Island we weren't sure exactly how much time we would have so decided to leave the Abel Tasman National Park and see if we had a couple of days spare when we got back into the region. Obviously, as you can see by the blog, we found the spare days so off we went.
Rather than go through the whole journey I will cut this a bit short and say that it was relatively flat farmland until we did the stretch across to Nelson which goes round the edge of the Marlborough Sound. It was a lot faster this time as we had stopped at all the viewing areas before. Another brief Nelson stop for refreshments and a visit to the camping gear shop's sale, before heading on to Marahau, via a very windy 23km's or so, before arriving at the village and a nice cheap camp site. After dinner and a bit of leaflet reading we decided to do a walk through the park, and further guided by the good old Lonely Planet, we opted for a stretch from an area called Tonga to another bay further down called Torrent bay.
The whole Abel Tasman Coastal Track is around 50km's long and you can walk the full length, but as we are not in the least bit crazy, and didn't fancy carrying all our gear for 3 days, we opted for the more sensible option of catching a water taxi to the beginning of our stretch and then catching one back at the end. All very simple apart from the fact that there was 15km of pathway that we had just agreed to walk. After booking the taxis for the morning we got back to the Spaceship and prepared for the day with sandwiches, drinks and a couple of healthy, and not so healthy, snacks for the way.
At 9 the next morning, much to the amusement and fascination of Jemma, we caught the water taxi on the road outside the camp site. This wasn't a transfer to the jetty or anything; you actually got onto the boat, which was already on a trailer, and were then taken and smoothly deposited into the water without the need to get off again. The boat then took us past 'split apple rock', a granite boulder split straight down the middle and sitting up out of the water (not a Lord of the Rings prop as the boat skipper tried to tell us), and past the Tonga Island Seal Colony before depositing us, in about 300mm of water, at Tonga Bay. It was then down to foot power to meet the boat again in about 15kms time.
The walk went surprisingly quickly and we both enjoyed most of it. Jemma appeared to enjoy it more or less as a direct correlation to the angle of hill we were walking up or down: down being the best and up being the worst. It was a good walk though, through some dense native forest areas and then reappearing above some beautiful bays and coves. We managed to get back for our pickup at Torrent Bay an hour before the boat, even including a lunch stop, so we relaxed on the beach for a while. Jemma's relaxing included a sleep and mine included eating up the rest of the 'not so healthy' snacks I didn't eat on the way.
There are no roads that reach this area of the park and that is why you either have to walk in or get the water taxis. So, imagine our surprise at finding a settlement of around 20 houses at Torrent bay. Apparently this was due to the land being sub divided and sold off about 30 years prior to the introduction of the park. Most of them are holiday homes but some people actually live there most of the time and must get in and out by boat. This included the woman who kayaked into Torrent bay, while we were waiting for the taxi, complete with her pet Jack Russell standing on the front of the kayak. He was quite happy sitting there and hopped off as she got close enough to the beach before trotting off home completely un-bothered by the situation.
Once again, after a bit of a paddle to get back on the boat, which then drove straight onto the trailer at the other end and was then pulled down the road back to the start. It is quite a strange sensation to be sitting in a boat, complete with life jackets on, heading down the road. Anyway, as you can imagine, after the walk we slept well after deciding to head over to Picton, via Takaka and some natural springs, the next morning.
Overall we spent about a month in the South Island and thoroughly enjoyed it all. The wildlife and scenery, combined with the ever friendly people over here made it a fantastic few weeks and we both hope to be back here again someday.