Abel Tasman

After about a week, it was time for us to start exploring the country and so off we went, from Christchurch to the North of the South Island: Takaka (great name, isn't it?!) and the Abel Tasman National Park. On our way there, we gained a first impression of what this country is like and what can I tell you? We were ravished! It is fabulous to have the mountains on one side and the ocean on the other, inbetween you have rolling green hills, little towns and farms, and... lots and lots and lots of sheep! Perfect! Sometimes you get the impression of travelling in a storybook!

Once arrived in the famous national park, we thought we might as well explore the whole thing and so we decided to do a four-day hike following the coast from the North to the South. As we had done massive sport by driving around Australia in a car during the last three months, we were convinced that we were in good shape to tackle the 55km and we set off with our big backpacks (which seems surprisingly heavy with the tent, sleepingbags, and the food for four days!!!) in a very happy and positive mood.

The first day, all went rather well, we tackled the numerous ups and downs of the track, met only a handful of people, enjoyed fantastic views, and we were only a little disappointed when it started raining at the end of the day. But hey, we are in New Zealand here, we can be lucky that it did not rain all day long! So, rather motivated we started our second and toughest day. 18km, two tidal river-crossing! The second part was the biggest problem because it meant that we couldn't walk at our leisure but had to press hard to make it to the two rivers during the three hours around low tide (otherwise the crossings are too dangerous because currents get too strong and the water too high). During this day, we were lucky with the weather, we made it through the rivers safely (as you might have guessed by me writing here...) but, seriously, you should have seen us arriving at the campsite at night! You would have died laughing, I am sure.

First, David almost killed me because of my choise of campground. There was one directly along the track but of course, when booking over the Internet, I did not pay much attention to details so unimportant, and I had chosen a campground mainly because of its beautiful name: Te Pukatea Bay. It's nice, isn't it? (Beautiful female logic, I know!) Well, David didn't quite think so because, already dead as we were, it meant continuing to hike another kilometer instead of dropping down where we were. Once we got to the campgroud, we were overwhelmed by the beauty of the bay and our little private beach. Of course, David forgave me for choosing this one and we set about to put up our tent.

Second, after having cooked our delicious meal of .... pasta and tomato sauce, we tried to move but somehow our muscles had decided to go on strike. It was so funny to see us moving around like grandpa and grandma, I started laughing and just couldn't stop anymore. Later on that evening a group of four Czechs arrived, all with tiny backpacks and terribly equipped. It turned out that they had hiked the same distance as we had done, only that they told us about a nice daywalk, not strenuous at all! We are still not sure if we were talking about the same hike, the Abel Tasman Coastal Walk. Moreover, they told us that they were doing the whole hike within 2 days. (Do I have to mention that it took us four days?!?!) Consequently, the acquaintance with the Czechs turned out to be very nice but rather disastrous for our ego. ;)

Well, nontheless, we continued our hike and enjoyed the last two days enormously. The landscape was breathtaking till the end, we had less kilometers to do, actually could take the time to go swimming in the ocean, and our physical condition improved over time so that we did not fear the encounter of other hikers (particularly Czechs) anymore. After four days, it felt quite strange to enter into civilization once more and we were very, very happy not to have given up at the beginning of the hike. It was awesome just to be out there in nature, to encounter only half a dozen of people a day, and to be compleltely self-sufficient. Hopefully, we'll be able to do some of the other famous New Zealand overnight hikes in the Southern Alps. For now, we'll enjoy some more time with our new friends from Christchurch. But that is a different story.