Nelson and Abel Tasman

It’s all about networking, right? That turned out to be true for this past week, when a series of connections led me to Robynne who treated me like family during my time in Nelson.

I arrived in Nelson late on Thursday afternoon and did some grocery shopping for my hiking trip. Friday was spent out on walks with Robynne and her friend Barb. First we walked along a river path out to a dam, and then we walked up a steep slope at the edge of town to the Center (Centre) of New Zealand. Robynne also kindly drove me into the suburbs to pick up a camp stove and pot set that I was renting for the hike, and then she lent me a sleeping bag. On Saturday morning we went into town to check out the craft/farmers market, and I got some cake-soap and some fruit before catching a shuttle out to the northern end of the Abel Tasman Coast Track.

Cloudy morning at the dam

Standing in the center of NZ

Sunset at Robynne's house

New Zealand has ten “Great Walks” that are highly scenic and well-traveled hiking routes spread throughout the country. They range in length and difficulty, but are all well marked and well serviced. The Abel Tasman Coastal Track is part of a national park, and is meant to be done in 3-5 days. It has four huts along the way, so I opted for the five day four night schedule, and I’m glad I did.

For me, the track (trail) started with a short afternoon of climbing along a mountainside and back down to sea level to the first hut. This is the lesser-traveled part of the track because it’s not serviced by water taxi, which is probably the most common way of getting in and out of the park. I found that the first night and next morning were my favorite part, though. The hut was originally built as a house and so was very cozy. The morning’s walk was partly along beaches and I didn’t see anyone else for the first few hours. The sun was shining and I had a beach all to myself for swimming.

Trailhead

The trail was always so green

First hut

Sunset at the nearby beach

One of the characteristics of the Abel Tasman Walk is the tidal crossings. The only one that’s still mandatory was at the end of my second day. It was basically a big estuary with the forest and an end of trail on one side and a hut on the other. At low tide and for an hour around it you could get across with just wet boots. The tidal difference was three meters, though, so you definitely couldn’t stay dry at other times of the day. I opted for bare feet and careful walking over tons of shells and little crabs that scuttled into holes in the sand when they saw me coming.

2 hrs after high tide vs 1 hr before low tide

Another characteristic of the area is the wildlife. One of the hut wardens said that when Europeans were first exploring the area the noise from the birds was so loud that they had to move the boat 5k offshore to get any sleep at night. Unfortunately, all of New Zealand has experienced a decline in birdlife due to the introduction of possums and rats, but recent projects have installed traps all over the park to try to help the birds thrive again. I saw lots of birds and other impressive wildlife during my walk, so I think it's already helping.

Seals posing for a family photo

Some sort of interesting birds

GIANT FERN LEAVES

Beautiful starfish

As I got further south the track got more and more populated with day walkers, campers, kayakers, and other multi-day walkers. I spent some time with a few German girls who had all come independently, and other than that I walked alone. Because of the availability of water taxis and kayak rentals as well as the possibility of walking faster and skipping a hut, almost every group had a slightly different itinerary. So I usually found someone to talk to at the huts in the evenings and then we went our separate ways in the morning. I was happy to walk alone, though, because I could stop for a sit on the beach whenever I felt like it. I emerged from my five days of beach and forest very smelly and very tired. Thankfully the return shuttle to Nelson was used to smelly hikers and Robynne still let me into the house.

More beautiful beach

Inland greenery

Sunrise on the last day

Emerging from the trail

I spent Wednesday evening cleaning up and resetting, and on Thursday I headed to my tourist activity in Nelson, a bone carving workshop. Somewhat disappointingly, the workshop leader Stephan was German instead of native New Zealand, but he had lots of experience and made all six of our designs come into being. I started with a drawing on paper, which I’d put some thought into after researching common Maori symbols for this type of art. I then drew that onto a piece of cow bone and used an army of tiny power and hand tools to cut it and smooth it to perfection. So now I have a very touristy souvenir necklace, but I actually made it myself!

Before

After

Next stop: Wellington