November 19, 2022

November 19, 2022

This trip to New Zealand is going to be the opposite of our last one. No great art, no cathedrals, no long list of must-see sights. Instead it is a laid back visit to national parks with beautiful scenery. The one commonality is rain. Like Croatia, rain is in the forecast for the next ten days. It rained all night here in the supposedly sunniest spot in New Zealand. I guess sunny is relative. There must be a reason the terrain is so green.

Today we are going to explore the nearby Abel Tasman National Park. The park is named after the Dutch explorer who first discovered New Zealand in 1642. The coastal trail of this park is one of the ten Great Walks of New Zealand. Since rain is likely we hired a water taxi to ferry us up the coast so we can hike a short section of this 37-mile multi-day trek. We parked in Kaiteriteri Beach, gateway to Abel Tasman National Park. We had a very early lunch facing the sea and watching the non-stop rain. 

A small motorboat took us north up the coastline. It is beautiful but still rainy. The hilly coastline is lush with vegetation. It stands in nice contrast with the teal blue sea. In between are a few secluded golden-hued sand beaches. On the way we pass Split Apple Rock, one of the most photographed icons of the area.

We disembarked at Tonga Quarry Beach. The rain has stopped and we almost see the sun trying to peek through.

We found the Coastal Trail and began our hike south. We climb up the coastal headland through a wet jungle environment. Scattered within the many Beech trees are lots of ferns of all types, from the very small to a large tree variety. New Zealanders must like their ferns as it adorns many logos, including the Air New Zealand fuselage.

The trail was wet but very passable as much of it was hard granite. In a few spots we had to step carefully. We passed a guy who had sunk knee-deep in mud. Aimee almost did too.

Once over the headland we hiked down to Barks Bay Beach. It is low tide so we could have taken the short cut across the estuary but would have had to navigate across some deep streams. Instead we take the long route inland and across a swinging bridge.

We stop at the beach and have some snacks. There are several birds that want to join us, including a beautiful Red-Billed Gull and a large chicken-like flightless bird called a Weka or Maori Hen. The most brave were two ducks who literally were begging at our feet.

We passed two Maori carvings, or poupou that are placed to remind visitors that Maori were here before the arrival of Europeans. New Zealand is the third point of the Polynesian Triangle (along with Hawaii and Easter Island). The Triangle represents the farthest extent of Polynesian expansion across the Pacific. They only arrived in New Zealand 800 years ago making it the last major landmass to be settled by humans.



From Barks Bay, we climbed a short headland to Medlands Beach. After a forty-minute wait we caught a large catamaran-like water taxi back to Kaiteriteri Beach. Almost all the other hikers were much younger than us and most spoke a European language.

The weather is sunny and delightful so we decide to stay and have a delicious pizza dinner in a local pub. I wash it down with an English cider on tap. We toast the unexpected great weather we enjoyed today.