Maitai River

Woke up to pouring rain this morning, thinking it may hinder our plans for the day to drive up to Abel Tasman National Park to hike along part of the Coastal Track (which is what they call trails here!). After a light breakfast at our hotel, it seemed to be clearing up a little so we decided to go for it! We drove the 64kms from Nelson to Marahau, where the trail begins (or ends depending which route you take!) and experienced blue sky, rain, more blue sky..... well, you get the picture!! The trail starts out along the beach with a short bridge and boardwalk, then changes into a well maintained trail, with beautiful trees and plants - a true New Zealand rainforest, with streams, creeks and waterfalls! In parts, there are beaches right alongside the trail, and in others, after gradually hiking up, they seem to be miles below! The first beach we came to was covered in lovely shells, so of course, we had to make a beach sign to commemorate our trip and leave for others to see we’d been there!

We continued along until we got to Apple Tree Beach and headed down to take a look. When we got to the beach, there was a lovely bird in distress - someone told us he had a fish hook in his wing. Minutes later, a man got off a boat, approached the bird and threw a net and tarp over him, and proceeded to remove the hook! I asked him what type of bird it was, and he told me a Cormorant, and showed me the large hook he’d removed! The bird was a little slow after “surgery”, and it’s wing seemed to hang down, but he walked away and appeared to be ok. We’d hiked the trail for a few hours at this point, so decided to head back on a water taxi with a group of other hikers. The boat was typical of any water taxi, until we arrived at our destination. At this point, there was a tractor waiting for us in the water just off the beach with a boat trailer attached. Our boat went up onto the trailer and we were driven in to the beach by the tractor! Then, our boat driver hopped onto the tractor and drove us the half km up the road to the water taxi rental place and let us all off in the parking lot! We’d never seen anything like that before!!

We got back to where we’d parked the car, and there was a nice little cafe right there, so we popped in for a quick lunch before heading to our next destination. We had seen a place on the map called Split Apple Rock, it was a short detour on our way back to Nelson, so we went to take a look. This was one of those beaches far down from the road, so we made the trek down to see the rock - pretty cool! Not many people on this beach, but it too was lovely. Of course, having come down a ways from the road, we then had to hike back up!! Didn’t take too long and we were both glad we’re in somewhat decent shape to be able to do this (ha ha).

Headed home to our hotel, then got changed and out for dinner in lovely downtown Nelson - it really is a pretty little town and we’ve thoroughly enjoyed our stay here!Read more