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Published: August 20th 2007
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Leaving Nelson we drove west to Motueka and arranged a two day trip along the famous Abel Tasman walking track that follows the coastline. It is possible to walk for 5 or 6 days, but we opted for an 8 hour walk in from Marahau on the first day, an overnight in the Bark Bay hut, followed by a 4 hour walk to Awaroa the next morning before returning by water taxi to Marahau. The timings of the walk can be a bit tricky as there are a number of tidal areas that can only be crossed during certain hours either side of high tide and some of which have no inland alternative.
Leaving Moteuka we pootled along toward the start of the track and parked up for the night on a rather luxurious piece of gravel on the side of the twisting road, just before entering Marahau. The next morning we were up early and drove into town, parked up the van and started walking at 9.30AM.
We stopped for an early lunch at Stillwell Bay, pleased with our progress although a little uninspired by the track. Sure it’s pretty in places, with lots of great ponga’s, but it’s
just too sanitised with a beautifully gravelled path and every stream bridged perfectly. It all felt a bit tame after our exploits in the native bush near Nelson and the addition of plenty of backpackers made it feel a bit like a conveyor belt. What we saw was nothing compared to the thousands of people that ply this route in the summer, where it must be gridlock on the path and is the reason that the Department of Conservation have recently had to spend a cool NZ$12 million on new toilets. The scenery is still there, with glimpses of golden sandy bays, but there is a point when the popularity of a place removes the very reason it became admired in the first place for its lack of road access and lack of people.
Anyway, with the tide in we had a long walk around over the hills to Torrent Bay to Bark Bay and after 6.5 hours of brisk walking we were ready to stop. With my memories of nigh on deserted huts on the nearby Heaphy Track, we were looking forward to a quiet night in a hut by the beach. Unfortunately, we found it crowded with
30 drunk and noisy Poms all from the same group, oh dear this wasn’t supposed to happen - I think I’d rather be lost! We did our best to compete with our extremely noisy petrol stove and had some interesting conversations with a few independent travellers hiding away in one corner. The sleeping arrangements were 4, 12-person bunks, which as you can imagine doesn’t always make for a great night’s sleep and we had to get up in the dark at 6AM to make sure that we could get across the next tidal crossing in time. Sensitive to the hung-over Brits we made our way through the empty beer-cans and cooked porridge outside on our noisy burner, ahhh..., the joys of getting away from it all in the backcountry.
We watched sunrise as we crossed Bark Bay glad to be out in the fresh air, getting our feet wet in the river that flowed over the sand flats. With boots back on it was on towards Onetahuti Bay, which we crossed with the tide well out and hours to spare, making it to Awaroa just before 10.30AM. With a water taxi booked for 1.30pm and the rain starting to
fall we were glad that by luck we had arrived just as an earlier taxi was departing so we jumped on. The trip back was great, as much a guided cruise as a taxi and we saw a penguin, plenty of rainbows and some great coastal views.
Back at Marahau we got the Ezy Cruiser started and drove further Northwest toward Golden Bay area and the town of Takaka. Crossing the rather vertiginous Takaka Hill with its innumerable twists and turns we stopped to admire the rain clouds and cool light affects in the distance over some lunch. Takaka really is the centre of the arty, pseudo hippy culture that thrives around here. It has a nice feel in many ways, but it seems a bit phoney with baggy jumper wearing alternative life-stylers sipping expensive coffee and passing tourists buying expensive art. We overnighted at Takaka in a quite campsite with plastic bathroom pods, a territorial lap dog and a fur ball cat.
The next morning we went to PuPu springs just outside of Takaka, apparently the 90th largest spring in the world and the biggest freshwater spring in the southern hemisphere....wow! It is also incredibly clear and
claims another fantastic statistic along the lines of having the clearest water in the world, as it is filtered for 15 years or something before reappearing at the surface. As swimming is no longer allowed, a garden shed periscope type construction with some mirrors in it sits half in and half out the water and lets you see the clarity of the water and where it rises up.
After that we headed to Pupu hydro walkway an old hydro power station closed down some when like the 1950’s and had been refurbished by volunteers about a decade ago. The interesting path started by the power house with its old English Pelton wheel turbine and generator, up to the top of the penstock and followed the water race that contoured around the hillside for a km or so and brought the water from the river. Completing the walk we stayed overnight in the carpark and what turned out to be a very cold and damp valley!
For a while we had been debating about organising some WWOOF’ing (Willing Workers on Organic Farms - more info. later) in the area, but after hearing a good weather forecast for the week
ahead, and knowing that it was a good idea to grab it while you can at this time of year, we turned on our heels and headed back out from the geographical dead end of Golden Bay with the aim of getting to the West Coast as soon as possible. So first we had to travel east back to Motueka and then south toward Murchison, the Buller Gorge and its river that runs east to west down toward the sea at the imaginatively named Westport. So, leaving the icy Pupu Hydro carpark on Saturday morning, we drove to the rather drab Waitapu Wharf near Takaka under a cold and grey sky, before thrashing our automatic bus back over Takaka hill and turning right at Motueka. We had an impromptu break after an hour as we came across some motorbike scrambling, before joining the Buller Gorge and heading west towards the sea...
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