As it was such a beautiful day we jumped on a Abel Tasman sea shuttle, better known as a water taxi, and headed into the park. The coastal track extends for 52 kms in total, and can be covered over 3-5 days, we however were planning on covering a chunk of the track by doing a day hike.
On route to our drop off point we stopped at the famous ‘Split Apple Rock’, an impressive giant granite boulder formed thousands of years ago.
We also passed Adele Island, one of three national park bird sanctuaries.
After dropping a few single hikers off at various bays along the coast we stopped at Pinnacle Island to see the seal colony and nesting shags.
Next stop was our drop off point called Medlands Bay (next to Bark Bay, photo below right), where we jumped off and became suddenly aware that we were the only people for miles around.
The feeling of isolation (the track is only accessible by water taxi) was exhilarating, we started our walk amongst the beech forests, winding around steep coastal tracks. We passed numerous empty golden sand bays, picturesque rivers and rocky headlands, and the weather was in our favour – perfect!
Lunch was at Torrent Bay, where we stopped for awhile and became mesmerised by the tide coming in, and the birds feeding on the fish trapped by the force of the incoming tide.
On our walk around the high tide track the birdlife was abundant, we saw amongst others a bellbird (below left) and a NZ pigeon (below right).
We detoured slightly and walked up to Cleopatra’s Pools, which involved a game of jumping from rock to rock over a stream…it was well worth it though! The pools were fed by a water shute and were crystal clear.
We arrived at Anchorage, our pick up point early, so decided to explore the beach and nearby caves.
The taxi arrived bang on time, so we hopped on and made the journey back to Kaiteriteri camp site.
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