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Published: February 22nd 2011
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On the 28th Jan we left Blenheim for the Abel Tasman, we got picked u at about 11.30am and arrived at the Barn hostel at around 6.30pm, the Stray bus is good but seems to take the longest routes and stops at all the most random places to making it the longest journey possible! The drive was very nice, through the nicest scenery, the hostel in the Abel Tasman was more like a ranch, had loads of little cabins, tents and one old barn house converted to a hostel, are beds were what can only be described as the hall way, there was a staircase leading up to the other dorm rooms, bathrooms and the kitchen were all rooms off this room, which was a large area with 8 beds along one side of the wall, 4 at the bottom and 4 above them (see my photos to see what I mean)! We were staying at the hostel for 3 nights, but in the Abel Tasman for 5 nights, the first day we didn’t do much, just trying to arrange what we were going to do there, we arranged to go kayaking the next day, we also arranged a hut and
water taxi for our 4th night.
So on the 30th we went kayaking, we arrived a bit early at the centre to get some training, it was a lot harder and scarier than I thought it would be! After the training we then went out to the sea to have a practice before we would be allowed to the go off on our own. We went off north to go around the coast to the beaches, but as it was getting later the weather started to change quite quickly, it seemed to take us ages to get around the corner to the first beach, we decided to stop there and relax for a bit and to see if the weather picks up, it seemed to get worse and the guy who trained us said that if the sea started to get white tops to get out and walk back to be safe, cos we were a double and single kayak it would be to dangerous, so we pulled the kayaks out on to the beach and then decided to walk back, was 1 hour 45 minute walk back in flip flops, was not easy and all our feet was killing
after!
The following day we got the water taxi out to Awaroa, the water taxi took about a hour, we had a little tour and also dropped other passengers off at different points. The closer we got to our drop off point the worse the sea got, it was so choppy that even the skipper was a little scared, he couldn’t get right up to the beach to drop us off so we had to get in the water up to our knees, we took our shoes off and thought we would just be getting our feet and the bottom of our legs wet, well that was fine for Alex who got off first just getting his feet wet, then Tracey got off just getting her feet and bottom of her legs wet, the skipper offering to bring her bag to her to the beach, then by the time I get there ready to get off the boat had slowly started going out to sea so I jumped off the boat up to my waist in water carrying my rucksack and then having to carry Traceys rucksack because the skipper had to save his boat and couldn’t come into shore,
was not a good start to the 2 day walk we had planned!
At the Awaroa bay there was a hut, so we decided to go there at get a drink and dry off a bit before we set off, it was amazing, really nice we a couple of restaurants, a pizza cafe and bar, we wanted to stay there and not do the walk! But we had a drink and then set off, we ad to walk from there to Bark Bay which was apparently a 3 hour walk, we did it in about 2 hours! Went we got there we realised that our hut wasn’t so good, it was literally just a wood hut with a seating area, 2 rooms with 14 mattresses on wooden shelves, it was literally 7 in a bed! There was no lighting or electricity and the toilets was 2 port-a-loo type things out side, on the plus side there was filtered water! We spent the afternoon on the beach and then went back to the hut for our tea! We had made some pasta the day before that we could eat cold but had no way or transporting it so we ended up
using little sealable plastic bags and little plastic forks! What luxury we were living in! We spent the night playing cards we some people we met there until it got dark around 9pm and then went to bed as there was no lighting!
The following morning we got up early and ready to leave, we had a long walk from Bark Bay back to Marahau where we were staying, according to the guide it should take us around 7 hours, we set off hoping this wasn’t the case. About 1 hour or so into the walk I was starting to get pain in my knee, it was getting worse and worse and but the time we got to the first point Torrent Bay, about 2 hours 30 minutes in I was in agony and almost in tears, I told Tracey that I could walk anymore and then I will stay here at get the water taxi back, she said ok and that she would carry on with Alex, but somehow we got separated and Alex had ended up walking back on his own and Tracey got the taxi back with me. That night we were getting the coach to Motueka
because we had a coach booked from there early the following morning to go to Nelson.
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