Amazing Abel Tasman
NEW ZEALAND | Tuesday, 16 March 2010 | Views [505]
3/17/2010 8:22 AM
Abel Tasman was well worth the effort to get there. We got up at 5:15am, and were out of Picton by 5:40. We asked about a dozen people how long it would take. Most responses ranged from 2:30 to 3:30, but the retard feminist hippie lady at our hostel said “4 hours if you drive ‘our speed,’ but probably 4:30 for you.” She made plenty of comments to Jess about giving her a “shovel and bag” because I booked the trek so early. Lame. And then her equally feminist hippie mom came over and joined in on the stupidity, saying “I make that drive ALL the time and I can tell you that it takes 4 hours; but if you think that you can make it in less, even though you’ve never done it before, then by all means.” Idiots. I wouldn’t trust a hippie for anything except directions to the closest hippie music circle. At any rate, we chose to leave by 5:30 to split the difference between 2:30 and 3:30. Sure enough, we made excellent time and were in Abel Tasman by 8:15, just 2 hours and 35 minutes later. Stupid hippies. If we had internet connection at this hostel, I would totally have e-mailed them just to rub it in. Oh … and our GPS stopped working half the way there. Bu yeah! ;p
Anyway, most of the drive up was in the dark, so we didn’t see much. But when dawn finally broke, we were right by the ocean, except the tide was so far out, that we were looking at a sandy plain that stretched out about 500m, with little pools of water scattered all over. We later came to find out that the tide rises and falls each day by 4m. Craziness.
We checked in at our pre-booked kayak spot and were told that we’d do the trip in reverse --- water taxi / walk first, then kayak in the afternoon. The water taxi ride was neat, just a wicked speed boat ride. We swung by “split apple rock,” which has appeared on dozens of NZ tourism pamphlets. It’s a spherical rock that has split right down the middle and looks like a split apple. The sun had just risen so we got a lot of really cool silhouette type shots. Then we got dropped off at a dock, way up the coast line. From there, we made a 2 hour trek south towards the kayak pickup point. The walk was 1) awesome, 2) typical. It’s really hard to appreciate these forest walks when you just do them in short bursts of a few hours. It all kind of melds together. And while it’s beautiful nature, it’s more or less the same all over. The difference with this walk though was that it was along the coast line. However, it was high tide, so we were literally walking right next to the water. Had it been low tide, we would have been walking past dozens of sandy beaches. Anyway, it was a great morning exercise. Jess even led the way! We made pretty good time, and stopped for lunch at a little bay called Anchorage. Dang … talk about breathtaking. The sand was a golden color. The water was crystal clear and a teal-blue. It was also super clam, with waves were anywhere from 1-to-5 inches, just trickling into the shore. And we were in this little protected bay surrounded by amazing greenery. The sky was absolutely clear and a brilliant blue, and the temperature was about 75F. What an amazing day, and what an amazing spot to have lunch on the beach. We packed ourselves some PB&J sandwiches, and fruit, and had about 20 minutes to put that down before we had to leave to meet up with the kayaks. It was a quick lunch, but really relaxing. The water, however, was about 68F, and we didn’t work up enough sweat on the walk to have that be refreshing. Legs in was as far as we went.
After lunch, we met up with the kayaks just 20 minutes away. These were legit, tandem kayaks. Every other time we’ve rented kayaks, they’ve been cheapy plastic ones, but these were sleek and fully equipped with dry bins for our bags, bungees to hold our water bottles, a rudder with foot-steering peddles, and we wore splash guard things so we looked like real kayakers. Awesome. We got a bit of instruction, and then pushed out from the 50 foot long cove we were standing in. It wasn’t until halfway between the launching spot and our first island that I turned around and was blown away by Abel Tasman. The scenery here is absolutely stunning. First, the conditions were perfect. Perfect air temperature, clear blue skies, just a slight breeze, and calm waters. But most importantly, the place was just beautiful. Much like the bay of islands, there were a few islands scattered throughout this bay, but it has been so well preserved, and there are so few people, that it probably looks like it did hundreds of years ago. Full of forests and golden sandy beaches, all surrounded by this jade-colored water. Actually, the water in most of NZ so far has been this same amazing color. It’s unlike the Pacific in Cali, or even the Atlantic in Florida – it’s not blue, it’s not tropical green, it’s this cool looking NZ jade color.
Our stopping point as this island that’s known to be home to NZ Fur Seals (oh, and we saw a couple tiny penguins along the way, ha). Sure enough, we saw a mixture of moms, dads and pups. The pups were the cutest; they would poke their head out between the rocks, and then disappear back into the rocks, or into the water. Apparently, there’s a time of year (and we were actually right in that time) where the pups start to venture out from their moms. They get really curious with the kayaks that they have been known to jump right onto the kayak, stare at the kayaker, and then jump back into the water. Hah. Unfortunately that didn’t happen to us, but damn that would be a cool experience! Our guide had it happen to her a few times. We continued around the island to the southern side, and from there we stopped paddling and let the current float us along the side of the island. We were about 50 feet from shore, and could hear the most amazing birdsong. Neither of us are bird people, and when the guide kept telling us that we’d hear really beautiful birdsong, we (or at least I) rolled our eyes, who cares. But wow, it was quite incredible. The songs were so neat, and there was a mixture of three or four birds all doing different ones. We coasted like that for about 30 minutes --- arguably the most relaxing thing I’ve experience in nature, ever. We cleared the island, and passed by a cool sand bar that jetted out about 200 feet from the island. During low tide, the whole sand bar is exposed (it was still under 2-5 feet of water when we passed at partial-low tide), and people have weddings on it. Pretty nice.
Getting around to the other side of the island, we got to try our driving skills and navigate through a couple of turns in these mini-rock formations. That was fun, and we almost made it without bumping, hah. We came around the east side of the island and looked back out at the shore line, and you could see five times more beach than you could when we left. In the 2 hours we had been gone, the water had receded so much, and had exposed tons of more golden sand. That was a very cool sight.
We made our way to the final island (passing by a couple more little penguins along the way --- they look like ducks at first, but then when you get close to them, they get scared and dive into the water, and that’s when you see them in all their penguin-like awesomeness). The guide took us to a spot on the island where we could drive our kayaks onto the sand, and then have a little rest with juice and cookies. It was a little protected part of the island (like a mini version of Anchorage from earlier), but it was ten times more amazing because we were the only ones there. It was at this island that we got a look at the sand for the first time … and it’s a weirdly textured sand. It’s a golden sand color, but it’s almost like tiny pebbles … very coarse. Very soft to walk on, yet it doesn’t kick up any clouds so the water stays crystal clear. Pretty neat stuff. After our rest, we made our way back to the point where we took the water taxi in the morning. When we took the water taxi out, we had to use a loading ramp from the road into the water. By the time we got our kayaks onto the sand, the tide had gone out about 600 feet, and we needed a tractor to take us back to the road. Haha. Oh … we also had a bit of a race back. I think Jess and I would’ve won, but some dodgy aussies ran their kayaks into us … booooo!
So … that was our Abel Tasman experience, and we couldn’t be happier with it. It blew away all of our expectations.
We made our way back to the hostel, got showered, and then headed out for our (third?) “real” dinner of the trip. I got some Thai rice sea food dish, and Jess got some risotto and spinach dish. Both were extremely delicious. Probably in part because we were starving by this point, but at any rate, it was well worth the money. It was 6:30pm by the time we finished lunch, and we almost passed out at the table (without wine) b/c we were so tired. We managed to make it back to the hostel in time to play a few games of Jumbline and have a couple glasses of wine, and then passed out exactly at 9pm. It’s now 9am the next day, and time to get our day started.
