a day of hiking through the most beautiful landscape

When we woke up early this morning and I noticed the beautiful blue sky, I was the happiest person on the world. It seemed that good luck was finally on our side and as soon as we had breakfast, we were picked up by some kind of a school bus to bring us to the Abel Tasman NP. The drive in itself was about an hour and we were not only Topdeckers, we picked up other people from their hotels as well.

During our ride, the weather changed however and dark clouds were hovering above us, I guess we were all thinking the same thing, please let today be at least a good day!!!

As we arrived at Abel Tasman, the weather changed for the better again and I could jump for joy, but not after saying a quick goodbye to the rest of our group first. They were going to do a kayak trip and afterwards they even had a short walk, so this meant that me and Tania were on our own today for a leisurely half day of hiking. Bring it on I would say!

Our water taxi was going to drop us of at Medlands bay, but before we reached this place almost an hour later, we first had a look at the split rock and some fur seals, who were enjoying their sunbath. 

The walk from Medlands Bay towards Anchorage was about 11.5 kilometers, accordingly to the locals a fairly easy walk, so as soon as we got dropped of and Tania changed into some more "summery" clothes, we were on our way. The hike trough the forest was a bit steep and tiring, but as soon as we saw our first bay, this was all forgotten. There was even a lookout point, less than 1 km into the hike and by the time we got there I was out of breath not only because of the steepness of the hill but also of the beauty that surrounded us.

We quickly ate some power food, in this case a banana, and then we were on our way again. The walk back to the main coastal track was a bit cursed, for me that is. Just as I wanted to tell Tania to have a look at her right to see the beautiful colors of the water, which were greenish by the way, I tripped over some kind of small tree root and I fell smack on my face. If I have to be honest, it was not immediately right on my face because my right hand and left knee broke the fall, but however you put it, it wasn’t pleasant. I scraped my knee and hand and I seriously hurt my right elbow, but after recovering for about a minute or two, everything was fine again. Even my camera survived, it seems that Sony is a good brand and shockproof as well.

I know I am a clumsy person, but this is just downright stupid! On the other hand, I learned a valuable lesson today, no matter how beautiful the scenery is, look down as you are walking!!!!

Back on the main track, we walked for another few kilometers (we think anyway coz there were no signs to be found) in the sunshine when we suddenly saw another bay, called Sandfly Bay and since we still had enough time before we had to catch our water taxi back, we went for it and had a look at this bay as well. This time I remembered my lesson and walked very carefully, but by the time we arrived at the bay, the weather changed again on us and it started to rain. Bummer!

The beach itself looked nice and it had its own small creek, so instead of walking through the rain, we decided to wait it all out and about a few minutes later it finally cleared up again and for the better as well coz the sun kept on shining. Following the coastal track all the way towards Anchorage, we came across a few bridges, but the neatest of them all was the suspension bridge crossing Falls River.

Only 5 people could get on there at each time, so it needs no explanation that even when hiking, you could end up in some kind of „traffic jam”. But as soon as we crossed over, a real challenge began as we had to climb several meters uphill. As the minutes passed and we were still climbing, I thought that it was never going to end. This was really a steep hill and for some odd reason lots of people were passing us. I know I am a slow climber, but that slow???

Even when we finally came at a beautiful lookout point and the track was going downhill again, people were constantly passing us and at a given moment we were even scared that we missed out on something. What the heck was going on here???

We knew that we had to be in Torrent Bay before 2 PM because of the crossing and the low tide. If we weren’t on time, we had to take the long way up to Anchorage and there might be a chance that we were going to miss out on our water taxi, but now that everyone was passing us, we thought we had to move on as well coz maybe the walk was longer than we thought. We were utterly clueless when it came to the length of our hike. Where the heck were all the signs ??? Where we going in the right direction ??? One thinks of many things when you are all on your own in a NP, that’s for sure !!!

I don't know what was going on, but one thing I do know, we arrived at Torrent Bay way in time! It wasn't even 2 PM yet and with still a little time to spare before the high tide was coming, we decided to have lunch together with some cheeky seagulls at a more than beautiful beach. This truly is the life sometimes.

The crossing towards the low tide was only a few 100 meters away and while crossing it, we also needed to jump over a few creeks. Sadly enough they were a bit deeper than I thought and soon enough my walking shoes were a tiny bit wet. Maybe I should have followed Tania’s idea and brought a few sandals along, but hey, that was a bit too late now. The walk itself wasn’t that long and as we almost reached the forest again we had to cross an ever bigger stream so, time to walk barefooted. The water was surprisingly enough quite warm, but the ground was all squeezy, so I was glad that after walking a few meters, I could put on my shoes again and as soon as we walked up the stairs into the forest, we arrived at Anchorage Bay … surprise!!!

I still don’t know why people were rushing the whole time because even the two of us arrived an hour before our pick up time. Not that this was too bad of course, we walked a little further down the beach and as soon as we found a good enough spot to put our bags, we enjoyed the sun for a while. It truly was an amazing day.

By the time we were going to be picked up, we met up again with our fellow group members and while listening to their stories, I was more than glad that we didn’t went kayaking coz they had to stop because of too bad weather conditions and in the end they were stuck for a while on some kind of island where a water taxi had to pick them up and while stranded in the rain, they couldn’t do anything, I am glad we had such a nice walk, except for my little accident in the beginning of the hike that is.

Exactly at 3.45 PM, our taxi is there to bring us back to the beginning of the NP and by the time we got back, Tania received the bad news that she could’ t go skydiving because of the bad weather conditions, what the heck, the weather is just fine now!!! Go figure???

Once back in Nelson, there wasn’t much to do than finding something to eat and we tried a local Italian place, but our pasta was just so tiny that we had to go to the golden arches for a second course, we were really hungry and tired as well coz by the time we got showered and packed all of our stuff again it was time to close our eyes. Time really flies when you are in NZ.