Abel Tasman National Park

We found a cheap deal for a day cruise and walk online in the Abel Tasman National Park. The weather forecast wasn't the best however it looked like it was going to be dry between 11 and 2 which is when we would be doing the walk so we went for it. When we woke up in the morning and checked the weather however it had changed to 90% chance of heavy rain all day! Not so great! It hadn't started raining yet though so maybe we would get lucky.

We had a short 20 minute drive in the morning to Kaiteriteri where the boat would be leaving from and as luck would have it when we arrived it started raining!

The sea cruise took us up along the coast of the Abel Tasman National Park where we stopped every now and then so they could point out something or tell us a bit about the park. The beaches were golden yellow in colour which I can imagine look amazing in contast to the vast green forest when the sun is shining however along with the sideways rain and mist the view wasn't great. We got to see a couple of seals on the rocks though which was pretty cool.

The boat cruise was around 2 hours in total before we were dropped off at Tonga Quarry where we would do a short 4km walk through the park. The first hour of the cruise was fine however the second hour the sea got a lot rougher and it turns out perhaps I suffer from sea sickness. I spent the second hour standing out the back of the boat fighting the urge to be sick whilst the rain poured off the top of the boat. The lovely lady on the boat must have felt sorry for me as she offered me a hot ginger drink which is supposed to help with sea sickness. The drink wasn't the nicest but it did help settle my stomach a little bit. Halfway through my drink, Simon staggered out to the back of the bottom as he was also starting to feel a bit queasy.

Despite the torrential rain that we were now experiencing we were just pleased to get off the boat. We now had around 3 hours to complete a short 4km walk from Tonga Quarry to Medlands Beach where the boat would pick us up again. We were told that there was a hut with a fire waiting for us near the beach so the plan was get there as fast as we could and start a fire. They usually say it takes around 2 hours to do the walk if you stop and take pictures however we did it in around an hour. It was raining hard pretty much the entire walk and we were soaked to the skin, even my pants were wet! I could also feel the water sloshing around inside my shoes as there was water pouring down most of the track in small rivers. Simons shoes are a lot more waterproof that mine however they were also defeated when Simon sunk in some quick sand type mud up to his knees! The only saving grace that prevented the day from being completely unbearable was that it wasn't cold!

You can imagine how happy we were when we could smell the sweet comforting smell of burning wood as we got closer to the hut. Someone had beaten us too it and already started a fire! When the lady on the boat had mentioned there was a hut with a fire we were thinking 3 walls and a fire pit but oh how wrong we were. This hut was huge, with a wood burning fire, kitchen area and places to sleep. Very fancy! As we had walked so fast, we had 2 hours until the boat was picking us back up so we got out our packed lunch and sat around the fire trying to dry out with another French girl who was getting the same boat back as us.

The boat ride back was just under an hour and not quite as choppy as the way up fortunately and we arrived back into Kaiteriteri around 4pm. The tide was out so the boat had to drop us off further down the beach onto the sand. Luckily Simon and I were some of the first people off the boat as the people behind us got absolutely soaked. You had to walk down a long ramp and then jump just as the tide went out before it came back in again. The first group of us managed this quite successfully but then this one woman kept starting to jump and then backed off again. Everyone was shouting for her to get off but she just froze and the tide was coming in so when she finally did get off the water was up past her knees and unfortunately the same for everyone behind her!

Because everything was so wet we decided to check into a proper campsite for the evening with laundry facilities so we could get everything dry. It wasn't the cheapest but there is no way we would have been able to dry everything out in the van otherwise, especially our shoes.Read more