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Published: April 23rd 2007
Today we have booked an Aqua taxi to drop us off and pick us up along the Abel Tasman Coastal Trail. We drive down to Marahau where we catch the 09.15 Aqua Taxi.
As it’s low tide a tractor drags us out to the water. This area and the beaches in particular are absolutely unspoilt.
Firstly we visit Split Apple Rocks an interesting rock formation (which amazingly looks like a split apple!) just of the coast. We continue further up the coast past Anchorage, Torrent Bay and Bark before stopping briefly at Tonga Island to view the seal colony. Finally we arrive at our drop off destination of Onetahuti Beach.
We are walking a 20km section of the 65km Abel Tasman Track. Most visitors hike the track in 3 days, camping along the way. The first section takes us from Tonga to Bark Bay along an inland track through the National Park.
An hour later we arrive at Bark Bay, a stunning deserted beach with Golden sand. We stop for about 15mins, just long enough to get part eaten by the sand flies. These little buggers are evil, they even draw blood!
We continue on
to our next destination Torrent Bay, which takes us another hour and a half. The only private homes in the National Park are in Torrent Bay, which were originally owned by locals before the national park was established. These are now prime real estate costing between $2-5m. We stopped at Torrent Bay for lunch and the Sand Flies finished us off! We met a couple that were on honeymoon who kindly gave us some sand fly spray. We should have known about the sand flies, as there is a Bay just north of us called Sand Fly Bay.
Our original plan was to be picked up at Torrent Bay by the Aqua Taxi, but we had arrived early so we decided to carry on around to Anchorage. Anchorage is so named, as it is the only safe anchor point for ships in high seas. This final leg of the walk, which hugs the lagoon, seemed to go on forever. Midway along we turned of to view Cleopatra Cove a series of Waterfalls dropping down towards the lagoon.
We were just starting the think we had taken a wrong turn when Anchorage came into view. We had walked over
20km along the track, which was great if a little tiring! Catching the taxi back to Marahau we arrived back at the campsite at about 6.00pm.
We went to the local Indian restaurant, next to the sex shop, where we had an average meal.
After a long day, another early night beckoned in preparation for our kayaking trip tomorrow.
Ta Ta for now K & M
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