Dirt 4 Life

Christmas in Paradise

The Abel Tasman coastal hike is 53 km hike in Abel Tasman National Park. This trail can be traveled in many ways you can kayak, water taxi or hike it or do a combination of all three. Phil and I decided to take the water taxi up to the north end of the trail and take 3 days to hike back and we wanted to take our time a leisurely pace and enjoy the beaches and the water. The start of our hike was at Mutton Cove and we were the only ones to get off the boat everyone else had either got off already or were going back and just doing the boat tour. So, alone on the beach what a great feeling we left our packs and took a walk up the rocks around the bay to check out some sea lions; the males were fighting and the babies were hiding; crying for their moms.

Leaving here was hard it was hot, the beach was nice and empty. All the other beaches that we passed in the water taxi were full of people but no one comes up this far north. Hiking along about 1.5hours into our day we found a beach and took some time swimming and napping on the beach – yes we took some time out to enjoy the sun and the water. Other people came by and saw us in the water and since we had been in for so long they decided they would try it to they lasted about a minute a little to cold for them.
A great trail and lots of great beaches on the way to Awaroa campsite the only problem is we had a tidal crossing and it wasn’t going to be passable until 6:30pm at the earliest and we arrived about 4pm. Waiting was going to be pretty boring and we don’t like to sit around it wouldn’t have been as bad it was a nice sandy beach but it was just a muddy estuary. After about an hour we could see a sandbar showing so we walked out and water was just above our ankles. That’s not too bad. Phil doesn’t like to wait so he decided he would take one pack and carry it over his head it can’t be that deep if he can see across. Phil started walking across the inlet and it slowly was deeper and deeper soon up to his waist, now over his waist, and now up to his chest. As he got to the middle of the crossing; walking in his sandals the rocks would get stuck so he would try and shake them out while standing on one leg – what a great idea. Meanwhile some other hikers came along and they stayed close to the shore and made there way around with the water only coming up to their waist for a few minutes. I’m thinking I’m going to go that way instead of straight across. Phil did make it across and he had so much fun he came back across to join me.

The campsite that night was chocka but we had a great night nice and dry. The next day we decided we just wanted to get to our destination at Torrent Bay and relax on the beach and go for a swim. We had to leave by 9am to make the next tidal crossing as well but it wasn’t a problem we had lots of time for this one. Great views and beaches as we headed to Torrent Bay at a much faster pace today so we got to camp early and went swimming and napping on the beach. We built a snowman out of shells as the sun went down and visited with some locals.

Christmas Day at Torrent Bay what a great way to spend Christmas day, we had some breakfast on the dock the tide was way out and we got invited by the locals to see Santa give out presents to all of the kids at the beach. It was great Christmas sprit just a little odd to be on the beach.

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