Abel Tasman Track

THURSDAY 5th JAN 2006 CHRISTCHURCH

We've flown half way round the world - to the other side of the planet. It's taken 48 hours of travelling. 3 different plane journeys. And where's the first place we see a signpost for ? St Albans. I shit you not.


FRIDAY 6th JAN 2006 CHRISTCHURCH TO KAIKORA

There's nothing remarkable about our car. It's a white Japanese Toyota Corolla. It's not rock and roll. It doesn't say "backpacker." It does say boring 9 - 5 commuter wagon. It's automatic for heaven's sake. But at seven pounds fifty a day it's very cheap and it goes. And for the next four months it's our wardrobe and safety deposit box on wheels.

KAIKORA 5th -6th JAN

Kaikora is stunning! We're not exploring it properly because we know we're coming back later. We're just stopping off on our way up to the Abel Tasman track. Our campsite has a fully equipped kitchen but we go out for dinner and have baked beans for breakfast.


9th JANUARY - The Abel Tasman Track

After a hearty breakfast of beans and sausages and what seems like hours of packing rucksacks - we're finally off on our first bit of "ruggedness".

It's a beautiful day, blue sky, no clouds and HOT. Much of the trail takes us inland through the forest and up and over several "saddles" or hills to us. Thankfully then all end up coming down to a beautiful beach. The forest changes so much. Sometimes when we're high up it's dry and scrub like, and other times it's lush with tall tree ferns and feels like the jungle. Luckily these areas are cool away from the sun. The last part of the day is hard going, on dry exposed inland track. Eventually we come out onto a lookout and see Anchorage Bay - WOW it looks like a set from pirates of the Caribbean, turquoise water, green land, several coves and islands. There are 100 campers staying here tonight, but not us. One final up and over and we're at our site Te Pukatea Bay. It's a stunning curved bay with steep cliffs surrounding it. There's us and 4 other tents on the whole beach! Nik does a grand job setting up camp as I'm about to throw up and have a pounding headache! Me and the heat AND exercise don't get along (really should have gone to the gym before coming!!) but it's definitely all worth it.



TE PUKATEA > MEDLANDS BEACH
We're not just tourists on the Abel Tasman ... we're pack donkeys too. There's no helpful sherpa here to carry our rucksacks. It's DIY. To make matters worse we have to carry in all our own food and water. We're gone for five days so that makes for a heavy load. The other consequence of this is that we're having to be on rations! Caity is "quarter-master" - she's carrying most of the provisions - but because I'm the one with the penknife I'm "weights and measures." It's only our second day and our one slab of salami (which we're only allowed to eat four slices of at lunch) is already looking as if it won't last. Caity accuses me of being too generous with our daily ration ....

DAILY RATION / PERSON
Breakfast
I sachet of porridge
dried fruit / peanuts
Half a cup of tea

Lunch
Half a piece of fruit
2 slices of bread
4 slices of salami (thin enough so you can still see through it)
2 slices of cheese (no thicker than an NZ 2 $ coin)
Half a museli bar

Dinner
1 dehydrated pasta meal

To rub things in some German trampers in the tent next to us (5 tents in total) walk past with a freshly caught fish they've just yanked out of the ocean. And they don't look as if they want to share it with us.

MEDLANDS BAY > AWORA 11th JAN

From about 20.30 pm onwards the safest place to be is inside our tent! That's because the jungle that surrounds our campsite is home to about a billion billion mosquitoes. When it gets dark you can hear them all look for some fresh blood .... meaning us ! Fortunately for me they tend to prefer biting Caity - so she's a useful travel companion to have. I can't help thinking if all the mosquitoes out there in the Abel Tasman bush learned to follow the track it would lead them right to our campsite and we'd be toast. Luckily our tent has a zip up bit of netting at the entrance to stop mozzies getting in at night. There's an unspoken rule that says we musn't leave it open for
longer than ten seconds for fear of letting too many into "the no fly zone." Any bandits that do make it through are shot down at bedtime. Headtorches are effective searchlights inside a tent.

AWORA > MUTTON COVE 12th JAN

We have a problem. The beautiful river in front of our tent has to be crossed at low tide +/- 2 hrs. Low tide is either at 3am or 3pm (there's at least 4 hrs of walking to be done after). We decide that early it is. The warden tells us the very latest we can start to cross is 5.40am. So we're up at 5am in the semi dark, rushing to put away everything. As we start to cross the sun starts to rise and the sky has pink lines across it. Nik's got his "ejector trousers" in short mode, and I've rolled up my one pair of trousers up - this early morning dressing decision turns out to be a disaster later on. The water is up to our thighs, but then I fall into a small hole and end up on my knees with water up to my waist! Luckily only the bottom of my rucksack gets wet, along with my trousers, pants and bottom half of my T shirt. Of course this was the day the weather changes and so nothing was ever going to dry!


Mutton Cove is stunning. We think it's our favourite site. The tent goes up just before the rain starts, which doesn't stop for the next 24hrs. We walk (without packs!!) as far as Separation Point, which is nearly the end of the track and Nik picks some mussels off the rocks for supper - which are had with a tomato cup-a-soup - but I won't eat any. Disappointingly Nik is not ill in the night.

Just because they didn't come from the supermarket it doesn't mean there's anything wrong with them!

MUTTON COVE > MARAHAU Fri 13th JAN

It rains all night, but the tent does it job and we're all dry. There's only 2hrs walk back today to Totaranui where we get picked up by a water taxi - which is just a big bastard of a speed boat - with a mad Kiwi driver! The weather clears so it's fantastic ride back and we can see all the places we stayed.

We find an expensive place to stay, have a shower, eat out for dinner and sleep in a clean comfy bed - FANTASTIC!!