We got up at 7:00 am to get ready for our trip to Abel Tasman National Park. Here is a map showing where we are and our drop off and pick up points for our hike.
It was just a beautiful sunny day, about 25 C and not a cloud in the sky. To access the Abel Tasman Coastal Track, the common method is by water taxi. These are really nice catamarans with an articulating boarding ramp that they extend from the bow to the beach. It works really slick. They drop a stern anchor as they approach the shore then ease into the beach until the bows beach themselves. They extend the boarding ramp which reaches the dry beach and tension the stern anchor to hold position.
We had several stops on our way to our drop off point. Lots of great scenery.
The section of the track we were doing started at Medlands Beach in Bark Bay and ended at Anchorage Beach.
Monte the Moose was really looking forward to the ride in the backpack.
Mostly a steep coastal track through heavy vegetation that occasionally provided some terrific vistas of bays and beaches. An amazing job they have done with building the trail that hangs on the side of bluffs for most of its 60 km length.
The trail had a suspension bridge that I thought would be a show stopper for "Ms Acrophobia" but she scampered right over it!
At Torrent Bay there were a group of trailerable cruising sailboats that had a unique way of mooring. Two hours later they were 20m from the water!
We got to the pick up point in lots of time and enjoyed relaxing after our 14 km tramp.
The wind had really picked up and we expected a rough ride back to Kaiteriteri but the catamaran was surprisingly smooth in the ocean chop.
Back at our place we did a repeat of yesterday, first a cold Speight's then a refreshing swim in the ocean. We had food for another do it yourself BBQ so we availed ourselves of the facilities and followed that by a trip to the Spa (hot tub).
Fantastic scenery on this leg of your journey, although I haven't seen anything that wasn't gorgeous yet.
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