Abel Tasman :-) AMAZING

Hello everyone! 

It is January 27th here in New Zealand, and the sun is slowly coming out. Michael and I were so lucky to have good weather the past week or more, but last night it decided to rain once again. Thankfully there was no wind so we could pull our tarp on quickly last minute and not have to put the stakes in the ground in the middle of the night. 

At the moment we are at a campsite called “Riverview Holiday Park” in Murchison...if you are looking on the map. This place is $12 per person a night, and that is pretty darn good. I don’t think we’ll be lucky enough to beat that price. The crazy thing is, this place is even nicer, quieter, more peaceful, and has the same bathrooms as these crazy “Top 10 Holiday Parks” that advertise everywhere in NZ, and are between $22 and $24 a night for camping! 

The place we are at now has a little cafe by a river, and there is even a swimming hole which Michael and I already went to on our first day when it was so hot outside! The swimming hole is called, “Eel Hole” which worried me a little bit, but the man at the office told us it was perfectly safe. 

Well, the latest update is that Michael and I completed the “Abel Tasman Coast Track” which is quite a hike. Just the track is probably around 53-54 kilometers. However, we hiked even further. The last night we had to hike way past the finish to make it to our campsite, and then the next day hike back to the finish to catch the water taxi. Even then, when we were on the boat headed back and tired as can be, we still had not completed the track. We decided not to pay extra to be dropped off at the exact start, so they dropped us off about another hour from the start, and we had to hike an hour back to our car. All in all, Michael and I spent 5 days hiking about 60 or more kilometers, which is about 38 or more miles. 

I have never done a hike like this in my life, or seen anything like it. It was so hard, and many times I was miserable as I was hiking over the 3rd mountain in a row that seemed like it was going up and up, zigzags and circles, and more up hill with no end in sight. Not to mention Michael was faster than me, and as I trailed behind him I just thought I was not meant for this. However, every time you stopped to look around you realized why you were there. 

It was truly beautiful.  The ocean was probably the most amazing thing, it was a clearer blue/green than I have ever seen.  The sand was also strange because it was not like normal sand at all, it was like sand made out of tiny, pebbly rocks. Then once you got deeper into the ocean it turned into real sand. Whenever we got the chance and had enough time we stopped at the ocean and went swimming. It was chilly, but felt so good. It was so funny because Michael is from Germany, and truly seemed to be shocked at the amount he was sweating--so he kept wanting to swim. He kept telling me honestly that he had never sweat this much in his whole life. He said it was impossible. He kept trying to make up excuses and think of why he was sweating. I kept telling him it was normal, and that if he was not sweating then that would be weird. However, he kept telling me to look under his arms and touch his back to prove to me he was sweating and how this has never happened to him before. Maybe it is just too cold most of the time in Germany.

The other thing you have to watch out for on this track are the tides. Many places you can only cross when the ocean is at low tide. Some places there are alternative high tide tracks that take hours longer, and some places there are no high tide options. We always tried to take the low tide tracks. We found ourselves walking through wet sand, crazy muddy textured stuff COVERED in shells, and at least 3 of the 5 days we had to take our shoes off at some point to make it through ankle deep, and sometimes, knee deep water. (You can see from the pictures)! We carried our shoes and packs through the water, meeting people along the way, saying hello to others trudging along either w/ us or going in the opposite direction. People would ask you in the middle of the knee deep mud and water to take pictures of them, and sometimes just stop and chat. It was such an unbelievably cool experience. 

My favorite part of the trip was seeing some men just hanging out cleaning their boats, or sitting on a chair on the front of their boats, enjoying the sun and waiting for the tide to come in. There would be lines of boats anchored to the sand, but no water anywhere in sight. It truly looked like a bunch of boats had just come out of the sky, and landed in the middle of the desert. Not just landed though, anchors down and all! :-) The people on the boats would say hello as we passed, like this was the most normal thing in the world. 

On the third day Michael and I were hoping for a shorter walk, but somehow I think the 3rd day was the longest and hardest. We just walked and walked, on and on, like it was never going to end. Finally we trudged through this muddy sand, over little puddles and shells, and finally at around 8 at night or so we found our campsite. We had just walked over this vast area of land, and were so glad to finally set up our tent, take off our shoes, and just eat something and relax. 

The next day we got up, and knew we had to pack up and get ready to hike again. We cooked, went to the bathroom, then did the usual...rolled up mats and sleeping bags, packed that stuff and the food back in the bags, then shut down the tent, put on our shoes, and were ready to go. We both had on our sunscreen, bug repellent, and bags on our backs when we hiked back to where we had entered the campsite just the evening before. We had to take a second glance when we came to the entrance of the camp...which now seemed to be ocean rather than a vast area of land. We looked around to make sure we had come to the right place, and indeed...the ocean was touching the very foot of our campsite and all surrounding land, and we were now on the only little bit of dry land around. We could not believe it. We kept saying, “We literally walked across this whole thing to get here yesterday, it was dry, and now it is the ocean...sitting right here!” 

It was unbelievable. The tide had come in over that huge area of land, and we were trapped there until it went back out again. So, what did we do...? Take everything off and swim!!! Slowly it began to recede, and we watched it go, little by little. The beginning of our hike that day was to get across the same thing going in the opposite direction. When the water was far enough away, we began to trudge. Within minutes I took off my shoes because they were already getting wet and muddy. Finally we came to a place where it was just so deep. We thought maybe we were too early and had to wait longer. We waited and waited and nothing seemed to change, and the wind was picking up. We saw people trapped and confused on the other side too. Finally a guy on the other side just said, “Let’s go for it!” grabbed his shoes and stuff as high as he could and headed in. Somehow it inspired the rest of us, and we all just thought, “What the hell?!” And there we all were, walking w/ each other, towards each other, in opposite directions, helping each other, and just doing this crazy thing. Somehow I wondered how in the world we all ended up there. I mean, in such a far away part of the world, and in this far away part of the world, a place even further away from civilization, hiking through the ocean tides, trying to make it to the other side. I heard all kinds of languages, people greeting each other in English, and overall just being there and lending a hand if you needed it. In these moments we were all a team, and it was the coolest thing. Then once you were back on the trail, people split up again, and Michael and I were left walking together just the two of us. But it was truly amazing :-)

5 days later we finished, hungry, dirty, tired, no shower, sore, and bitten by bugs. But somehow it was a beautiful thing. It felt so good to have completed it, and so weird to be back by your car next to a road after being literally out in the wilderness w/ no connection to the outside world. Even though we had a moment of just wanting to go back and live in this crazy hidden world by the sea, we were overcome by our hunger and the nearness of “The Fat Tui.” How could we resist a good, big delicious burger? So, we went...and it was the best burger and fries ever!

Now we are in Murchison, and headed to Westport. I know this is long, but Abel Tasman was long and a pretty fantastic journey. 

I miss everyone back home! 

xoxoxo