Wellington and Abel Tasman

Oceania » New Zealand » South Island » Abel Tasman National Park
February 20th 2008

Published: February 28th 2008

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weeg

Te Papa

Shot of Te Papa - New Zealand's big national museum which is located in Wellington.

It rained again the day after the Tongariro Crossing, but I was heading to Wellington. Wellington is not a bad place to run into rain, I guess, since we could still walk around town and enjoy the nightlife. I went to Te Papa, New Zealand's big museum, and the Parliament building. There was also some pretty good nightlife in town since we were there on the weekend.

I crossed the ferry to the South Island in the rain and was excited to get to Abel Tasman National Park. Abel Tasman is located on the northwest corner of the South Island. As you can see from the pictures, there are nice beaches and views of the ocean. The weather turned nice again so I decided I was going to spend several days enjoying the area.

The first day I went on a day hike up the Abel Tasman Trail. The Abel Tasman Trail is a four day hike along the coast and beaches. It is one of New Zealand's "Great Walks". I decided to hike up to Torrent Bay, which is only a half day hike really - 12 km. The hike along the trail was fairly easy, as it

Me at Parliament Building

Shot of me in front of the New Zealand Parliament Building in Wellington.

was very well maintained. There were bridges at all of the stream crossings and the bridges made the hike easier than most trails I have done back in the States. The hike was mainly though the "bush" (woods) along the ocean. It continued down to Anchorage Bay. There was a nice beach at Anchorage Bay where we spent some time relaxing in the sun and waiting for the tide. At low tide, there is a tidal hike to Torrent Bay. We had to hike the segment in bare feet since the mud was deep and there was still lots of water in the area. It was sort of a cool hike. We got picked up in a water taxi at Torrent Bay to take us back to the trailhead.

The next day I headed up to Golden Bay on a water taxi. It was a nice day and the water taxi is a great way to see the coast and to see the entire Abel Tasman Track, without having to hike the entire trail. It was a nice ride up the coast. Then from Golden Bay, we took a trip to see Pupu Springs, which provide water for a

Picton

A shot from the ferry as we crossed to Picton, on the South Island.

river near Golden Bay. It was amazing the amount of water that came up from the springs. No pictures of this as the camera would not really capture the scene. After that we went to an eel farm. The eel feeding portion was not the most exciting thing that I have ever done. Pretty stupid, really. I spent the rest of my time at Golden Bay relaxing and hanging out in the sun. There was a lookout near Golden Bay that we checked out. We biked up to a trailhead and then walked a short hike to an overlook that was in the middle of the rocks. Good overlook of the area. We played a couple of rounds of mini-golf as well.

The bus was not running, so we had to take the water taxi back down south. It was a rough ride since there were 4 meter waves that day. Lucky that nobody got sea sick. I enjoyed the bumpy ride back as it made the trip pretty entertaining.

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