A beautiful walk

A lovely day walking in such scenic area…we are doing this walk in 4 segments, not following from one end to the other…something to do with what works best and where we stay, but fine by us, we just follow the instructions! So this morning, after breakfast, we went to the water taxi place just down the road, as we were ferried to our starting point, then walked back to here. This is a very tidal area, and at low tide the whole bay is virtually empty so they have the boats on tractors that take you to the water! Then you launch and take off…so we were water taxied for about 45 minutes up the coast, then dropped off, found the track and started walking.

It was only about 12 kms, but not actually easy. We had always heard that the Abel Tasman was such a piece of cake, but I found it a little demanding at times, and certainly was a bush walk - always having to beware of roots and stones that can trip you up….and there was a fair amount of uphill and downhill…what I mean is that it wasn’t a camino walk, where the track is mostly free of obstacles…so it was a bush walk, and offset with stunning views and panoramas. Not a complaint at all, a fabulous day, but just unexpected!

A very well marked track, and side tracks to beaches along the way. We only went down to one where we had lunch, as it usually involved quite a clamber down and up. The track mostly went along the side of the hill, which gave us those wonderful panoramas.

Carole and John did well as they are not walking veterans like us. They kayak and cycle which involves different sets of muscles, and tomorrow they are going to cut their walk shorter and get a water taxi back. Tomorrow’s segment of the walk is the other end of the trail - we get a water taxi for about an hour, get dropped off and walk about 14 kms and get picked up by car transfer back to here! Seems crazy, but there must be some logic in it for the organisation! So Amr and I will do the walk to the end (there is an optional extra circuit which we probably won’t do, the basic walk sounds good for us.

So we got back to our very nice rooms today at about 3.45 and had a lovely relax. Amr had a hot tub - the rest of us hadn’t even brought swimmers - but very pleasant. It was warm during the day, but quite a strong breeze, and cools right down at night. Perfect walking weather. And should continue!

We were booked into a restaurant down the road tonight, part of our deal, and we’re expected at 6.30…all was good, we were expected, but there was an excruciatingly long wait for our food to appear!! Over an hour…we could see things slowly being served to others…they all had to wait too, it wasn’t just us…a very slow and careful kitchen…but when it finally arrived they were delicious meals! And we will have dinner there again tomorrow as there are only 2 restaurants - where we ate yesterday which is closed today and tomorrow - so no choice! But we’ll be prepared for slow service.

Off to bed and ready for a new adventure tomorrow.Read more