The Abel Tasman Coastal Track is called one of New Zealand’s Great Walks. The total trail is 60km & takes 3-5 days from Marahau to Totaranui with tent camping spots and a few sleeping huts along the way.
We have decided to only do a day hike. We tramped almost 13km from Marahau to Anchorage Bay.
The trail climbed to a bluff along the coast with peek-a-boo views of gorgeous beaches and offshore islands. Some of the beaches were accessible by short but steep spur trails.
The park has a water taxi service and we had booked the 4:00 boat to take us back to town. As we arrived in Anchorage, tired and hot, the 2:30 boat was just loading. Luckily the captain was able to accommodate us, so we didn’t have to sit on the beach for over an hour.
What took 4.5 hours to hike took 40 minutes by boat!
The beach at Marahau is wide and shallow, so they use tractors to haul boats from 3’ deep up to shore. We saw this done in Argentina as well. Very simple and ingenious. It must be brutal on the tractor’s service life though!
The tractor pulled the boat right out of the water and down the road to the water taxi base – thankfully only a few hundred feet from our lodge; we are done with walking today!
Today we are very thankful for ibuprofen and the hot tub.
Since neither of us has any energy left, dinner is going to be very simple – a pouch of Mexican soup that we have been dragging around with us since Christchurch!