The track continued through forests, skirting bays, and over sloping hills. Some of the bays were amazing greens and blues. And the tides here are enormous, parts of the track crosses right across bays at low tide; unfortunately we were hiking during high tide and had to go the long way around the coastline. The coast along Abel Tasman has some of the largest tidal ranges in NZ, of up to 5.2 vertical meters, which can lead to tidal change of hundreds of meters. When you pass one of the inlets when the tide is changing, the water is just roaring through there, very cool. The walk was beautiful though, great views everywhere and countless gorgeous beaches to stop and relax on. We wished we had more time to stop and relax and swim, but I guess we always think big on our hikes, haha.
The next day we drove up to the Golden Bay beaches and Farewell Spit, the NW corner of the south island. Unfortunately it was a rainy and overcast day (guess we were due that after having no rain in Fiordland!), so we didn't get to relax on the beaches too much. It did clear a bit while we did a short walk to Whaririki Beach, located on the NW coast. The beach was beautiful, with white sand as fine as powder. You had to hike over some dunes to get to the water. Normally there are nice walks along the beach and lots of seal, but that day the wind was whipping so bad that we all had sand everywhere almost immediately. You can hear the wind and see the blowing sand in this video. It was a gorgeous beach though!The next morning I woke up to a beautiful sunrise out the window. Only about 5:30am though so after a quick picture I went right back to bed!
We spent the morning relaxing at Kaiteriteri Beach, a golden stretch of sand lined with some beautiful beach houses - not exactly the typical NZ bach over here, there were definitely some of the monstrosities we are more used to in the US, haha. I liked a little one on a cliff overlooking the bay. After Mom and Dad complaining about how it wasn't warm enough, they had to go hide in the shade when they felt the full power of the NZ sun! It gets hot!
In the afternoon we booked a last minute trip on a water taxi tour, to see some more of the Abel Tasman beaches up close. And wildlife - we saw seals sunning on the rocks, another seal hunting and eating an octopus, a sting ray swimming in one of the shallow lagoons, and lots of birds. Every bay and lagoon was another unimaginable color of blue or green. Here is a sampling of some of the views:
Totaranui Beach, towards the north end of Abel Tasman NP - the sand color was just amazing.
Another really big thing to do in Abel Tasman is kayaking. We didn't get a chance this time, but will definitely do that on our next visit. You can arrange all kinds of hiking/kayaking/boating combinations. All of the water taxi services make the park really accessible - but also made it more crowded than most of the other parks we have visited in NZ. And, unlike most other parks, there is private land w/in the park - how would you like to have a home on the Abel Tasman track? Awesome! There are quite a few homes but not much else nearby - we basically had 2 restaurants for dinner within a 20 minute drive. Here is the 4 of us on the little deck off our rental house, heading out to dinner on our last evening.
We headed back to Auckland for Mom and Dad's last week. The weather really cooperated, it was crystal clear skies and temps in the upper 70s for the rest of their stay. We had a few more great dinners, and got into the Christmas spirit by visiting a street in Auckland where everyone does their lights up really well, AND they have lots of performers - carolers, musicians, even puppeteers. Except there was an ice cream stand, and it wasn't even dark enough to see the lights until after 9pm, which reminded us that we were a long way from a MD Christmas!!More blogs to come about our first Christmas in summer and our East Cape trip! Trying to catch up here!
