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Published: July 27th 2009
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From Picton, I headed west, through Nelson to the little town of Motueka, which is pretty close to the Abel Tasman National Park. Sadly, this is one place where time caught up with me, and instead of having 3 days there to complete the Abel Tasman track (one of New Zealand's Great Walks) I just had the one. This left me with 2 options. The cheap way was to just get a bus to Marahau, walk up the coast along the first section of the track, then walk back. The other option was to get a boat a bit further into the park, and do a bit of the walk further up the coast.
I confounded expectations by going for the more expensive option, figuring that being as I'm here I might as well see the park. The boat took me from Marahau all the way up the coast to Totaranui, which is the end point for the Abel Tasman track. Three days walking covered in 30 minutes! On the way, we got chased by a dolphin, and to prove that miracles do happen, I actually managed to get a decent photo of it.
The boat then headed back
down the coast, to Tonga Bay, which is where I disembarked. From here, it was about a 3 hour walk along the coastal track to Torrent Bay, where I would be picked up again. Surveys say that this section is the best bit of the Abel Tasman track, so even though I only had a day, I was still getting the highlight.
And a highlight it was, a beautiful walk in the bush, every so often getting to a highpoint to have a squiz at the beautiful beaches below. With white sands, and backing straight onto forest, it reminded me of those lovely beaches back in Brazil. There were however two main differences. The first, which could be seen from upon high, was that there was also a backdrop of snow capped mountains. For me, that elevated these above their Brazilian counterparts. However, the second difference ensured that Brazil regained the initiative. You see, the water lapping at the shores of these beaches was absolutely freezing. There was no way I was even considering going for a swim in there. And I consider myself to be a pretty hardy soul.
With the walk complete, I made my way
back through Motueka to Nelson for a day before I headed down to the glaciers. Unfortunately Nelson did nothing to convince me that it was a very interesting place, and the only thing of note that I did there was walk up a hill to a point that is apparently the very centre of New Zealand. Of course, not having much to do in a place meant that I spent some valuable time with my friends the tea bags, and their distant cousin milk. Of course, not forgetting uncle hot water. Yes.
Perhaps the fact that this blog has turned into the personnification of tea suggests that it is time to end it. So I will. Not the whole blog, just this entry.
Stewart
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