The Abel Tasman is one of New Zealand's nine "Great Walks". It takes 3 to 5 days to walk the length of it, and along the way you can either camp or stay in DOC huts. As Great Walks go, it is relatively easy - the area enjoys some of NZ's best weather conditions (so although we took our wet/cold weather gear with us, we didn't use it). Plus it only elevates to 200-300m (whereas some of the other Great Walks go really high into the mountains) and it takes you mostly along stunning coastline and onto plenty of beaches so it's easy to take a dip in the water to cool off if (or when) you need to.
We cheated a little and took a water taxi in on the first day, so missing out the first 4 hours of the walk (!). The water taxi was great fun, a scenic cruise in itself, and after a bit of a walk and a play on a stunning beach, we arrived at Anchorage Hut, our first stop for the night.
Pretty flashy huh? DOC does such an amazing job of building and maintaining their huts - they're all in very remote locations and it's just brilliant that we get use of them.
That night, while Alfie played soccer with some other kids and Jake & Molly got stuck into their books, I managed an evening stroll along the beach - just stunning....
The Anchorage Hut sleeps 34 people in basic bunk rooms, and on the night we were there there was a big family/friends group of 22 parents and teenagers who were very nice, but stayed up playing noisy games until 10pm.
Consequently we set off on Day 2 for a 17km walk in 30 degree heat with two kids who were already exceedingly tired.
But we managed to persuade them to keep going, mostly by taking regular stops to eat and to dip our toes in the water...
We also stopped at Cleopatras Pool for ages, a gorgeous rock pool where the water was freezing and we didn't care because we were so hot and sweaty!
After 7 hours of walking and stopping and paddling and eating, we FINALLY reached Bark Bay hut, our destination for night 2. Yay!
Bark Bay is an amazing little spot and in hindsight we wished we'd booked 2 nights here. It's set on a beautiful estuary which allowed endless hours of crab and mud-snail hunting, with two rivers that flow into the sea. The freshwater rivers were great for paddling in (we had no worries with salt water stinging Alfie's eczema) - and great for catching more crabs in too!
By the end of our explorations the kids were just about wiped out. A bowl of rice cooked on our little gas stove helped a little bit (the huts have no cooking facilities so you need to carry all your own gear) .
The food gave us just enough energy to manage an evening stroll along the beach before we all collapsed into our bunks for a big sleep. (Some of us slept so heavily that night that we were completely unaware of someone else's child vomiting all night in the bed next to us!)
The next day was our third, and last, day of walking the track. For a track that goes around the coastline instead of high into the mountains, it included a seriously long uphill climb to start the day!
It was also a little scarey in places!
But we made it to Tonga Quarry just in time to eat lunch and have a play on the beach....
.....and then catch the afternoon water taxi back to Kaiteriteri, all ready for Part 3 of our summer holiday!
We LOVED you, Abel Tasman Track, and we will definitely be back for more one day!
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