The Abel Tasman Coastal Track in Abel Tasman National Park, New Zealand's smallest national park, is the most popular of DOC's Eight 'Great Walks' - rugged granite headlands, sheltered coves, sweeping green hills, plus sandy beaches and estuaries. The coastal track is a linear track 60km in length from Marahau to Wainui. The Inland Track another 40km completes the circuit going up and over Evans Ridge back to Marahau. The track has many DOC campsites and huts along its route which all have to be prebooked due to the tracks popularity.
Lisa kindly dropped us off at Marahau, the start of the Abel Tasman Coastal track. Before we set off hiking though we all stopped at the cafe for some coffee and cake. Lisa and her daughter Ella walked with us briefly over the estuary bridges to see us off, we were hiking for 11am. Our hike was 21km today from Marahau to Bark Bay Campsite. The first 11.5km to Anchorage Bay turn off was very easy, a very well laid level track which contoured in and out quite high up around the coastline with some great views of the bays below. It was a warmish day again with sunny spells in the morning but started clouding over later. Just past Anchorage Bay we descended down to Torrent Bay where we were able to cross the estuary at low tide and cut out a few Km's. One small stream of water slightly too deep meant we had to remove our boots and go barefoot to cross. Once across the estuary we stopped for a quick break before continuing on to Bark Bay. The track was a little bit more hilly from Torrent Bay but nothing major. We crossed a suspension bridge over Falls River, the parks biggest river before eventually descending down to Bark Bay campsite for 3:45pm. The campsite sits on a little jutting out peninsula, the estuary forming a horseshoe shape around it. We were just unlucky with the weather, ten minutes before we got to the camp site we got caught in rain and a thunder storm. We waited in the campsite shelter, with a load of other people, for just over an hour for the rain to stop before we set up our tent, afterwards it remained dry during the evening but did rain again during the night.
We woke up to a beautiful sunny morning on our second day on the track. We hiked 24.5km today from Bark Bay to Mutton Cove. We left camp a little later, 8:50am, as we were in no rush, we had to wait for the midday low tide to cross an estuary, Awaroa Inlet, 11.5km into our hike. Luckily the low tide times were in our favour. The track today was a mixture of lush green inland tracks, lots of beautiful beach crossings and lots of ups and downs. The coastal track only goes to about 200m elevation but climb up to 200m a few times from sea level and it gets quite tiring and the ascent/descent total soon adds up. From Bark Bay we climbed steeply up to a saddle and then down to Tonga Quarry beach where blocks of granite remained from an old quarry. Next we crossed another beautiful beach, Onetahuti Bay which had a new board walk crossing at its northern end over the tidal stream. We climbed up again over Tonga Saddle then down to Awaroa Inlet which is only passable at low tide as there is no high tide alternative track. We swopped our boots for our Crocs as we had a few shallow channels to wade through, bare foot would have been painful as there were too many shells. We climbed up and over another couple of saddles, past pretty Goat Bay and down to the huge camp site at Totaranui Bay, another fantastic arc of a sand bay. We headed around Totaranui estuary then up and over another couple of saddles alternating between rocky headlands and sandy beaches until we reached our campsite, Mutton Bay, at 3:45pm. A very pretty grass campsite next to the beach, the pesky sand flies were a little bit of a nuisance though.
Again day three was a beautiful sunny day, much warmer too, it got quite hot in the sun out of the sea breeze. We left camp at 8:45 and immediately climbed up to a saddle and then down again to Whariwharangi Bay hut/campsite. The DOC hut there was a lovely restored farm homestead. Whariwharangi bay was our last beach visit, we headed inland from then on, up to another saddle overlooking Wainui inlet. Here the coast track descended another 3km to Wainui but we continued climbing inland on the Gibbs Hill track, also now part of the Abel Tasman Inland Track, up and down quite a few times over rolling hills, to Pigeon Saddle. There were some great views back down the coast from where we'd hiked from yesterday. From Pigeon Saddle it was a steep 5km climb, a few steep descents thrown in as well, up to Awapoto Hut. The inland track became a proper tramping track, unformed with lots of obstacles, much like we expected tramping tracks to be in NZ. There was also a lot of tree fall from a previous bad storm. The Abel Tasman Coast track is actually classified a 'walking track', a man made formed track cut out around the coastline, the inland track is classified a 'tramping track' for 'experienced trampers of moderate fitness'. We reached Awapoto hut at 2:45pm, a lovely hut that sleeps twelve but we had the hut to ourselves, one young American camper turned up later. A shorter tramp today, we hiked 17km, but much more hilly, the hut was at 675m elevation. There were great views down to Awaroa Inlet from the hut and three or four very noisy large Kea birds in local residence. The toilet looked like it had recently been replaced in a tree fall destruction zone following the storm.
Our fourth and last day on the track, we knew it was going to be our most tiring day but unbeknown to us we had further to hike than we thought. Another warm but slightly overcast day, we left the hut at 7:45 and started climbing gradually uphill for a couple of hours through more large tree fall to Evans Ridge and a track junction where we had a short break. We continued along Evans Ridge through stunted beach forest to Moa Park shelter which was surrounded by tussock moor. From the shelter we had lots of ups and downs over not particularly easy terrain, lots of tree roots, before descending steeply down to Castle Rocks Hut. We'd hiked 13km to here and according to our maps track description thought we only had 11.5km to go but the sign when we got there said 15.1km! We continued through the forest over reasonably levelish terrain, on this section Nigel slipped and ended up falling about ten feet off the side of the path down a steep ledge, luckily he was fine, just a few scratches. We reached Holyoake shelter and had a quick break then started descending steeply down for 5km to rejoin the coastal track and hike the last 2.7km back to Marahau. We made it for 4:45pm, we'd arranged a pick up with Lisa at 5pm, a slightly longer day than we'd planned, we were hoping to be finished for 4pm so we could relax for an hour. A tough but very enjoyable day though. We met Lisa and drove back to their house, Lisa and in the evening Lisa and Warwick cooked us a lovely fish meal.
The following day Lisa and Warwick kindly let us borrow one of their cars so Nigel and I dropped the kids off at school and Lisa to work and had a drive out to Golden Bay, another stretch of beautiful coastline. Unfortunately the weather wasn't so great, quite overcast. We had lunch in Takaka, a very hippy small town, drove to another smaller beach Tata beach then returned back to Motueka for coffee and cake. In the evening we all went out to Toad Hall for a pizza and to be entertained by some friends of Lisa and Warwick's who were playing in the band. A lovely evening, Lisa's parents joined us too.
A quick whistle stop NZ trip this time unfortunately but we'll be back next year. We had a great week hiking the Queen Charlotte Track and Abel Tasman Tracks, the inland track giving a taster of real NZ tramping and we definitely have our hill legs back again. It was also lovely to spend time with Lisa, Warwick, Ella and Sophie, thank you so much guys, see you again next year.
The following day we headed down to Christchurch by bus staying for one night before catching our flight back to the UK.
