abel tasman coastal track

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instead of flying to our different placements, we decided to buy a car so we could see more of the country and make the most of our time off...

on our way to westport, we took the inter-island ferry that goes from wellington to picton on the south island. this ferry takes about 3 hours. we then drove from picton to nelson where we stayed for the night. the road from picton was very windy and narrow; albeit, quite gorgeous views.

picton is in the "marlborough" region which is very well known for its sauvignon blanc.
nelson is a cute hippy-ish town which, interestingly, is very similar to nelson BC. we stopped at a "holiday park" for the night.. the owner was quite nice and let us leave all of our luggage there while we went to do the abel tasman hike for 3 days.

drove from nelson to motueka and had some breakfast and freshly picked cherries. also, found a camping store so we could buy some fuel for our stove. then we headed towards marahua, which is where the southern trailhead of the abel tasman track is located. managed to book a water taxi to totaranui and off we went.

water taxi ride was about 1.5 hours and brought us along the coast that we would subsequently hike down. saw some seals along the way on tonga island. t

apparently the weather had been quite dismal until the day we arrived.... lucky for us... we were able to have 3 days of sun along the track.

started at totaranui and made a loop via gibb's hill (STEEP!!!! ) to the northern trailhead, then continued onto mutton cove, where we set up camp for the night. took about 4.5 hours in total. we were a bit indulgent with our meal planning and had a nice spread of cheese, crackers, and red wine; followed by lamb/veggie curry mixed with udon noodles. delicious!

next morning awoke to a beautiful sunrise and crashing waves. we (jeff) had wanted to sleep without the fly on the tent....and our tent got soaked by a sunshower!

then we headed from mutton cove to totaranui (~ 1.75 hours). we had lunch at totaranui and then continued on toward the awaroa river crossing. we stopped at waihanakeke beach to wait for the tide to go down...and dry out our tent. the awaroa crossing was pretty impressive. they recommend that you cross it from 1.5 hours before low tide to 2 hours afterwards. we arrived at about 1 hour before low tide and were still wading up to our knees. after the crossing, we had another 4 hours to go until our campsite at medlands beach. lots of hills to go up and down....didn't get in until 9:20pm...exhausted! had a nice supper of basmati rice/paneer and veggies and fell asleep...

final day (3) we headed from medlands to marahau. a total distance of 21 km. after hitting anchorage bay, this was by far the easiest stretch with relatively flat/well-graded trails.

after finishing the track, we headed back to nelson to pick up our stuff and then drove 3 hours to westport...with a stop in a cute town called murchison for supper (lamb chops for me and a kiwi burger for jeff).

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