Abel Tasman National Park pt 1

Today was definitely a day where ‘everything works out’ as it always does haha. Decided to get up to Abel Tasman park for the day, but instead of paying for the direct tour bus to bring me there, my plan was to take the city bus to Motueka (city near the park) and hitchhike from there to Kaiteriteri, where there are boats that take you to the park.

Got the bus, only for my eSIM to run out of data as I arrived in Motueka. Found some free wifi, downloaded another eSIM, had lunch in a park (as it was already almost 2pm by this point) and decided to start hitchhiking. And then it started to rain, so not ideal for getting picked up haha. A kinda lady picked me up, sorry to see me standing out there in the wet. She was a dog walker by profession (as well as a taxi driver on the side?) and so had 4 or 5 excited dogs in the car with her, quite the ride! She dropped me off on the turnoff to Kaiterteri where I got picked up by a gentleman who lives there. It’s a sort of resort-town with gold sand beaches and lots of hotels and such, but also a starting point to get into the park, which is mostly hike or boat in only.

I got to Kaiteriteri, half not expecting to even get that far, but happy I did! The only water taxi company I could find online seemed to say that there were no more departing boats until 4:30, the last run, and I had to get back too! But I decided that since I was there, I would just walk around in person and try to find other companies. So I spotted one that said next sailing: 2:30pm (in 15 mins!) Perfect, I bought a return trip, with about 1.5h in the park before the boat picked me up again. And it was cheaper than the other companies (still NZ$80 tho!)

The boat ride over was awesome, stunning views, huge waves, stopped to see some seals, split apple rock, and then got dropped off in Anchorage Bay, where I did a little loop hike! A truly spectacular park with so much variety in landscape, but a tropical mountainous feel to it. Even found a geocache near the end! The 2h I had in the park were about the only sunny two hours of the day, really lucked out with weather, and it poured rain on the boat ride back. On the boat I met an American lady traveling with her cousin, who offered me a ride back to Nelson, as they heard I would be hitchhiking back!

https://strava.app.link/SDbJWacogRb

A success of a day, not knowing at every turn if it would work out in the end or not haha. Abel Tasman is a spectacularly beautiful park, named after the first European to see New Zealand. Same Tasman as Tasmania and the Tasman Sea.Read more