Abel Tasman

Nelson is a small city at the top of the South Island and a gateway to three national parks. Abel Tasman opens along the coast to the northwest; inland lie Kahurangi and Nelson Lakes. Many people arrive not to stay, but to continue towards mountains, forest and sea.

Nelson itself deserves half a day. There are apple orchards and local craft breweries; Pic’s peanut butter, which we often buy in Auckland, is made here too. Hammocks even appear along a central city street, inviting anyone with tired feet to lie back and look at the sky.

After landing, a shuttle took us from the airport to collect our rental car. We only needed to reach Mārahau that evening, so we gave the afternoon to Nelson.

Our first stop was Botanical Hill. We followed the loop track to the survey marker known as the Centre of New Zealand. The name suggests a geographical midpoint, but the site was actually an early reference point for surveys in the Nelson district. Katherine crouched beside the plaque and placed her hand on it.

A few steps farther on, the city opened below us. Houses ran towards the waterfront, Tasman Bay was blue in the sun, and distant ranges hovered beyond the water. We had not entered the Coast Track, yet the sea had already appeared.

After coming down, we went to Christ Church Cathedral. Its bell tower rose from the centre of the city, while inside everything was still. Katherine sat in a rear pew beneath the red glow of the cross. The light outside was hard and bright; here, the volume of the day seemed to lower.

From the cathedral we walked through the South Street Historic Precinct. Century-old timber cottages still held their narrow verandahs, weatherboard walls and small street-facing windows. The city had continued to grow around them, but this street had felt no need to become larger.

It had been a long time since the two of us had shared a draught beer. After South Street, we sat down at The Vic Public House and ordered one each. Condensation gathered on the glasses; sunlight rested along the edge of the table. No one was asking us to hurry towards the next stop.

From The Vic we drove to Queens Gardens. The path curved beside the water, a white bridge held its reflection, and several ducks moved past our feet.

Within the gardens is the Huangshi Chinese Garden. A sign explains that Nelson and Huangshi, in China’s Hubei Province, are sister cities. Katherine is from Wuhan, also in Hubei. When she left twenty-three years ago, she could not have imagined finding the name of her home province in a Victorian garden at the top of the South Island.

We stopped beside the commemorative stone. People continued along the path behind us. The ducks had reached the other side of the pond.

Red Chinese characters were carved into the stone: Huangshi Chinese Garden.

Mārahau sits at the southern end of the Abel Tasman Coast Track. It is a small settlement, its houses scattered along the road and tidal flats. Most people arrive carrying a pack, waiting for a boat, or preparing to enter the national park on foot.

Our first day began with a water taxi.

The passengers were already seated before the boat reached the water. A tractor towed us along the road, past the houses and down onto the wet flats. When its wheels entered the sea, the tractor stopped and the boat’s engine came to life.

The same boat was first towed along a road. Only when it reached the water did it become a boat.

After leaving Mārahau, wind poured in from both sides. The water taxi travelled north along the coast as headland after headland slipped behind us. Forest grew to the edge of the rock, and the water changed colour from bay to bay. Every so often a beach appeared beneath the hills, with no road leading to it.

We were bound for Bark Bay.

The water taxi put us ashore, then quickly left with other passengers. Once the engine had faded, the beach became quiet again. A track sign stood at the forest entrance: Anchorage to the south, Awaroa farther north.

We turned south.

There are two ways from Bark Bay to Anchorage. At low tide, walkers can cross the inlet at Rākauroa / Torrent Bay. When the tide is wrong, the track makes a longer circuit around the estuary. We took the high-tide route.

The water taxi would collect us from Anchorage at 3:30 that afternoon. We did not want to miss it, and added no side trips. The turn-off to Cascade Falls remained on the sign. We kept walking south.

The track soon entered coastal forest. Tree ferns leaned from the slopes; the ground was damp in one place and bleached by sun in the next. The sea did not remain beside us. Often we could only hear it, until a bend in the hillside let the water appear again between the trees.

Far below, two people in a kayak moved slowly across the bright water. We watched for a moment from the track, then continued.

The Falls River Suspension Bridge crossed the forested valley. A sign at its entrance said: maximum ten people. The river below was dark, and the deck shifted gently beneath each step. We reached the far side and did not turn towards the falls.

Beyond the bridge, the track continued to rise and fall between hillside and coast. Through gaps in the trees, the afternoon sea sometimes turned almost white; around the next bend, it became blue-green again.

Then Rākauroa / Torrent Bay opened in full below us.

The sea reached between the hills, crossed by a pale sandspit. Nearer water was clear blue-green and deepened with distance. Tidal flats, houses and boats at the shore had all become small. We had already walked a long way, yet the bay seemed to open the entire coast all over again.

At low tide, walkers can cross the Torrent Bay estuary directly. We did not descend to the flats. We went back into the trees and followed the high-tide track around the bay. For a while the sea disappeared, leaving only the path beneath our feet.

We began checking the time more often.

When we reached Anchorage, the water taxi had not yet arrived. We were early. We put our packs down beside the beach, and at 3:30 the boat approached across the water to collect the day’s final passengers.

The day’s record stopped at 15.94 kilometres and 25,048 steps.

Back in Mārahau, time slowed again. We had dinner at Hooked on Marahau, where the tables look across the road to the tidal flats. The retreating sea left narrow bands of light in the mud, while the distant hills turned dark.

Katherine ordered a local wine; I ordered a beer. At The Vic in Nelson, we had sat down for a drink together for the first time in nearly twenty years. In Mārahau, we did it for the second time.

She kept the glass beside her, ate slowly, and occasionally turned towards the flats.

Before the last light left the sky, the moon rose above the tidal flats with a trace of pink.

The people who had been hurrying for the 3:30 boat were sitting at a table now.

On the first day, we had walked 15.94 kilometres from Bark Bay to Anchorage.

Back in Mārahau, Katherine had finished her wine at our table outside Hooked, but the tiredness in her legs had not disappeared with it.

The next morning, she was uncertain.

Yesterday had already been too much, she said. She did not know whether she could finish another walk today.

Our second day began, once again, on a water taxi from Mārahau.

Instead of heading straight north, the boat first turned towards Split Apple Rock / Tokangawhā.

Two enormous pieces of granite stood parted above the water, like an apple cut cleanly in half. The skipper slowed the boat so that everyone could look.

We stayed on board.

Soon the engine rose again and the boat continued north along the coast.

The day before, we had stepped ashore at Bark Bay and walked south to Anchorage. This time the boat passed Bark Bay and kept going.

One bay after another slipped behind us. Forest covered the slopes all the way to the rocks and sand. Where roads no longer reached, the sea became another way into the national park.

We were bound for Awaroa.

The water taxi landed on Awaroa Beach. We stepped off, followed a timber walkway away from the sand, and entered the trees.

We had expected the walk to begin as soon as we left the boat. Instead, there was a café behind the trees.

Since it was there, we stopped for coffee.

The café was part of Awaroa Lodge. It served food and coffee, but it also offered accommodation. No road reaches the lodge; most guests arrive by boat or on foot.

Once we sat down, its place in the middle of the national park began to make sense.

Many people walking the full Abel Tasman Coast Track leave Mārahau carrying several days of food and clothing. They make their way north over a number of days, stopping at Awaroa to sleep, eat and recover before continuing.

We were not travelling that way.

Each morning we left Mārahau and used a water taxi to reach the beginning of that day's section. We then walked towards another bay. The boat removed some repeated ground and allowed us to return to the same room each evening.

Other walkers joined one day of walking to the next. We joined the boat to the track.

By the time the coffee was finished, Katherine looked more at ease than she had that morning.

We left the lodge and turned south.

Continuing north from here requires a crossing of Awaroa Inlet. The tidal flats are passable only from about ninety minutes before low tide until two hours after it, with no all-tide alternative. We were heading south. We did not need to cross the inlet or wait for the sea to leave.

The first part of the route from Awaroa to Bark Bay climbed through forest towards Tonga Saddle.

The track soon closed around us. Sunlight fell through the leaves onto roots and earth. For a while the sea disappeared, leaving only our footsteps and the sounds of the forest.

The weather was beautiful, and the sun was strong.

The moment we stepped out of the shade, heat returned to our caps and shoulders. Back beneath the trees, our skin cooled again.

Beyond the saddle, the track began to descend.

Water gradually appeared below the forest. Richardson Stream divided into shallow channels as it crossed the wetland near the coast. A bridge and boardwalk carried the track towards Onetahuti Bay.

Katherine stopped on the bridge. Sunlight lay across the boards, and the railings cast long shadows beside her feet.

Beyond it, wetland, sandspit and sea entered the same view.

Shallow water curved through the sand towards the blue beyond. Much of the previous day's coast had remained hidden by forest. Here, the view opened all at once.

Onetahuti is one of the longest beaches along this part of the track. Wetland and forest lie behind it; offshore is the wider area of Tonga Island Marine Reserve.

Late on the first day, we had checked the time repeatedly, afraid of missing the afternoon water taxi.

On the second day, Katherine stopped asking how many kilometres remained.

The route was shorter, and the sea kept returning through gaps in the trees. We would walk for a while, and another stretch of water would show between the leaves.

She began stopping to take photographs. On the bridge, she was happy to remain a little longer.

South of Onetahuti, the route passed Tonga Quarry. We did not know its name at the time and did not look for traces of the old granite workings. Only when we studied the route later did that part of the coast acquire a name again.

Farther south, the track left the shore and climbed through mānuka forest.

When the trees opened again, the estuary at Bark Bay lay below us.

At low tide, channels remained across a wide bed of pale sand. Water curled around rocks and driftwood before reaching the bay. Beach, wetland and forest had all been placed within the same open space by the retreating sea.

We were close to the end of the day's walk.

Our record from Awaroa to Bark Bay stopped at 12.02 kilometres.

It was the shortest of our three days on foot.

At the end of Day One, Katherine had worried that she would not manage today. After finishing, she had already started working out which section we might walk on Day Three.

A water taxi carried us from Bark Bay back to Mārahau.

That evening, instead of returning to Hooked, we went to Park Cafe.

It did not look across the road towards the open tidal flats as Hooked did. Its timber walls, lattice screens and slightly informal tables made no attempt to create a polished waterfront atmosphere.

It felt more like a restaurant that belonged to the place.

Our waiter was a young man who had moved from Christchurch.

He was easy to talk to. He had met a local woman here, he told us, and eventually stayed.

Work in Mārahau was intensely seasonal. In warm weather, water taxis came and went with visitors, and the restaurants and accommodation were busy. Once winter arrived, the visitors disappeared. There was really work for only half the year.

When the food arrived, Katherine tasted it and gave me a thumbs-up.

Then she ordered another glass.

At The Vic in Nelson, we had sat down for a drink as two for the first time in nearly twenty years. At Hooked on the first evening of walking, it had been the second time.

By Park Cafe, there was no need to keep counting.

On the third day, we finally walked in the same direction as most people on the track.

There was no water taxi and no boat time to meet. We had an afternoon flight from Nelson to Auckland, so the plan was simply to head north from Mārahau and walk as far as time allowed.

The track begins behind Park Cafe. In front of the cafe is a free car park where walkers leave their cars before shouldering their packs and entering the national park.

We left our car there too. Our pack held only warm water and snacks.

From the car park, the way to the coast first crosses the bridge over the Mārahau estuary.

A bird stood on the bridge.

It faced the water from the rail and did not move as people passed. We walked by it, and that was how our third day began.

The sign at the entrance listed the places ahead: Porters Beach, Tinline Bay, Coquille Bay and Apple Tree Bay. Beyond them were Stillwell Bay, Akersten Bay, Watering Cove and Anchorage.

We had not made any of them a deadline.

The track followed the estuary into the forest. Trees hid the sea, with only an occasional line of water showing through the leaves.

For nearly twenty years, travelling with our daughters had meant checking clothes, food, rooms and the next part of the route. Now there were only two of us, and the pack felt almost too light to need checking.

When we were tired, we stopped. When the sea appeared, we looked a little longer.

Around Porters Beach and Tinline Bay, the track rose and fell gently between forest and shore. At low tide the estuary spread into pale sand, crossed by a few narrow, bending streams.

Farther on, a small patch of blue appeared between the branches. As we came closer, the whole bay opened.

This was Apple Tree Bay.

Some people had taken off their shoes and were walking through the shallows. Others sat on driftwood facing the water. We stopped there too.

Katherine sat on a piece of wood and lifted the brim of her hood to look at the sky.

We ate some of the food we had brought and stayed by the water a little longer. The track continued, but the airport lay in the other direction.

So we turned back.

Because we now knew where the path led, the return seemed quicker.

By the time we reached Mārahau, the bird from the bridge was gone.

After the walk, Katherine stayed at Park Cafe for lunch. I crossed the small bridge diagonally opposite and went alone to Fat Tui.

I had heard its burgers were famous. When mine arrived, I put my fist beside it for scale.

My fist lost.

Afterwards, we collected our luggage and drove to the airport.

There was no boat on the third day.

We made our own way back.