The Abel Tasman Coastal Track (part one)

January 27, 2009

It was finally time to start my first real tramp: The Abel Tasman Coastal Track! I was very excited. I was extremely interested in learning how to tramp. I love walking through nature and this seemed like a great way to do it.

The tramp was located in Abel Tasman National Park along the shores of the Tasman and Golden Bays. It was supposed to take five days. There were four huts located along the route that I would spend the nights in. There were numerous camp sites, too, but I wouldn’t be using any of these. I didn’t want to have to carry a tent or sleeping pad.

To mix it up a bit, I decided to replace the first day’s hike with a section of sea kayaking instead. I chose a tour with the Sea Kayak Company. The starting (Marahau) and ending points (Anchorage Hut) for the hike and sea kayak are actually the same. The Sea Kayak Company would pick me up at my backpackers hostel in Nelson and drive me to Marahau (about 60 km away). They would throw my pack on a water taxi and have it delivered to Anchorage for me. It was a really good setup!

So, I awoke at 6 AM after a fitful night and had muesli, yogurt, and an apple for breakfast. I moved the stuff I wouldn’t use on the tramp into the hostel’s storage room, checked out, and got picked up at 7 AM. We were delivered to the beach at Marahau, at the edge of Abel Tasman National Park. My guide’s name was Rose. The kayaks were for two people, each.

I was paired with Amir from Israel. Since I had gone canoeing before and had a notion of how so steer boats like these, I took the rear seat and controlled the rudder with pedals. Amir took the front seat and was supposed to row to provide most of the power. His paddling, however, was very erratic since he tried to steer the kayak on his own. It’s very difficult to do this from the front position, so we had problems going straight. I asked him to paddle more regularly since it was my job to control the steering, but he didn’t listen very well. How annoying.

Here’s an excellent map to show you my journey through Abel Tasman National Park. The map itself is from the New Zealand Department of Conservation’s brochure for the tramp, with some of my own annotations in red (click the map to see the full size view):

Despite my annoying co-kayaker, I still greatly enjoyed myself. The weather was warm and sunny. The water was a beautiful colour of blue. The shoreline was forested, hilly and punctuated with craggy outcrops of rock. This national park was truly a beautiful place. We put in for morning tea at Appletree Bay. After some more paddling, we stopped at Observation Bay for the lunch provided for us: very yummy chicken sandwiches with camembert cheese and savoury mustard with some fluffy and moist carrot cake for dessert. I wouldn’t eat this well again for days!! After a short swim in the warm water, we had a walk to Pitt Head before returning to paddle the Mad Mile around that same head. Along the way, we saw some penguins swimming in the water. They were so tiny the you couldn’t see them when the bobbed through the troughs of the waves. The water wasn’t very choppy… it’s just that the penguins were so small!

Finally we paddled around into Torrent Bay. We battled hard to make headway. The tide was running out of the bay and the current was fierce. My marine adventures were over when we beached the kayaks on the sand in front of the busy Anchorage Hut. The beach was packed with people on day trips. The bay itself had many yachts and houseboats anchored (I guess that’s why it’s called “Anchorage”?).

By this point, it was about 3 PM. I looked around, and my pack hadn’t been delivered. A brisk sea breeze picked up and I nearly froze to death while sitting on the front deck of the hut waiting for my pack to show up. The only clothes I had at that point were my wet board shorts and my wet rash guard. Talking with various people, I found out that the water taxis were delayed since there were threats of rain and they were helping some other kayakers who had capsized. Finally my pack turned up and I was able to dress into drier and warmer clothes. If I was this cold here, I had to buy more sweaters before going hiking in actual mountains next month!

Since I had my pack, I was finally able to pull out my sleeping bag and claim a space in the hut to sleep. This hut had two bunkrooms and a separate room as a kitchen/dining room in the middle. Each bunk room had two levels of bunks, and each level had six bunks, laid out all in one row. You didn’t really get any space between you and your neighbour. I hate going on top bunks, so I took the lower left one, so at least I wasn’t stuck between two people.

Yeah, this is much more crowded than any hostel. And more expensive! Sad.

The kitchen was very basic. There was no electricity or cookers. You have to bring your own camp stove and pots. I had bought some freeze dried backpacker meals back in Nelson. I just had to boil water, pour it into the pouch, stir, and let it sit for ten minutes. I discovered that it’s really quite important to wait that ten minutes. After a day of exertion, you get very VERY hungry. Waiting that ten minutes seems like forever. But if you eat the food too quickly, it’s not cooked. It’s not as good. Even then, the instant meals were okay. That night had Moroccan Lamb Stew and cous cous.

That night I hung out with three Kiwi girls (Ella, Emily and Jessie) who had done parts of the Abel Tasman in various sections before, but never the whole thing in one go. We were actually walking in parallel, so I would keep running into them the next few days. One of their cousins and her boyfriend (Lucy and Tenzen) were there, too, but weren’t doing the tramp. We played some cards. It was good chatty fun.

I read a bit. You get lots of time to read while tramping since you don’t actually walk the full day and there’s no electronic distractions to fill the time otherwise. Once it got dark, though, it started to get more chilly and things get very quiet. Once the sun goes down, the party is over.

January 28, 2009

I did not sleep well. The hut had a “No Smoking” sign that someone had modified to say “No Snoring”, but it was soundly disobeyed. Ear plugs weren’t helping much, either. My tiny travel pillow wasn’t sufficient. I had to remember to use a pile of shirts as pillows next sleep.

The sun went up at 6 AM and most of the people in the hut were gone by 7 AM. People were in a rush to cross the neighbouring Torrent Bay estuary while the tide was still low. I’m rarely so ambitious that early in the morning, so I didn’t even get out of my bed, er bunk… er BAG, until 7 AM.

I made myself some instant coffee and had porridge mixed with honey for breakfast. There was a really cute Swiss girl that I talked to for a while (I had talked to her last night, too). She didn’t bring a cooking apparatus and I offered her some tea with honey (“It will be good for your cough!”). After brushing my teeth and writing in my journal, and eating chocolate, I finally got my ass in gear. By 9:30, I was packed and ready to go. The tide had come in, so I couldn’t take the short-cut across the estuary. There was a separate, but longer, path that I had to take instead. Apparently it increased my hiking time by an hour. The hike today, however, was considered “short”, so it shouldn’t be a big deal. It seemed pretty long to me, though!! This was my first day of hiking with a big pack EVER.

I had difficulties at first. The pack seemed very heavy. After a while and a lot of adjustments, I was able to figure out how to wear it to make it easier. There were countless gorgeous views and I was forever tempted to take pictures of EVERYTHING. I had to be very careful, though. I had only brought my old camera and there was no where to charge it along the trail. I had to make one charge last five days. It took all my willpower!

Here’s the view back towards Torrent Bay:

There were a few other genuine trampers on the track. Most of the people I encountered were very noisy daytrippers. There were ludicrous amounts of people who seemed to come in on a water taxi, walk for a few hours (without a huge pack, of course) and shuttle out at the next water taxi. For some reason, about 90% of these people were Germans and I could hear them yammering from miles away. There was very little tranquility in this forest. Hopefully in a couple days, when I was farther north and out of range of the water taxis, things would settle down.

When I got hungry, I munched on some muesli for energy. After about four hours I made it to Bark Bay Hut, which seemed a lot less busy than Anchorage. I had walked about 13 km. I had half an energy bar, some dried beef jerky, a fruit roll, a pita and lots of water for lunch.

Although the weather report we received in the morning called for showers in the morning, the day ended up sunny and hot. It was good beach weather. Yesterday was windy, but today was great. Thankfully, there was a beach right outside the hut! I laid on the sand for hours and soaked up the sun. I didn’t swim that much though. I just like lying there and baking for a long time. Once I get too hot, I will jump in the water for five minutes to cool off before repeating the whole process. Life was hard *evil grin*.

I finished my current book “Under a Blood Red Sky” by Kate Furnivall (something about ladies escaping from gulags in Siberia). I had picked it up off a book shelf in Perth, almost two months prior. It had been months and months since I had actually bought a book, even though I seemed to read a book every one or two weeks. I just kept trading them over and over.

After the beach, I went back to the hut to have some tea and talked to the cute NZ girls for a while. I wrote in my journal for a very long time (I had so much catching up to do).

Dinner was freeze dried Chicken Tikka Masala from Back Country Cuisine (rumour said they were the “good” tramping food company). Again, it was just okay. I taught some Kiwis how to play Euchre, though I had to narrate most of it. I’m pretty sure that only Canadians knew how to play Euchre. I played poker with another group of Kiwis. we used pebbles as betting chips. At the end, everyone went “all in” and I took everything with my full house! Suckers!

By about 10 PM, it was dark. By 10:30, everyone was asleep. Walking that far really exhausts you! Baking yourself on the beach has that effect, too ;)

–
Rob Szumlakowski
Toronto, Ontario, Canada