A Walk in the Park

Well, today I got up at 6... which has sorta been the norm lately. Margaret and I had made plans to go to Abel Tasmen National Park for the day and she was still feeling a bit under the weather last night. So I packed and went out to find coffee for us both, and got back in time to make sure we made the bus.

The bus ride was really nothing exciting...so i'll just skip past all of that. We drove north past Kaiteriteri to Marahau (two of the main centers for tourist activities in the park). The schedule for the day was to take a water taxi from Marahau north along the coast to Anchorage. Then we would walk back to Marahau via a 4 hour trail, but we had about 6-7 hours and could stop by beaches pretty leasurely along the way.

As was planned we boarded the water taxi, but prior to taking us north, we traveled south just around the bend. There we were shown "Split Apple Rock", and just like the name suggests... it looks like an apple split in two. After that we were taken north where we were dropped off on the beech of Anchorage where we began our walk.

We began heading uphill along a mostly clay path. Being mostly clay there was fairly limited vegetation. Due to the small plant life and the vantage point of the ridge, we were provided with some spectacular views of the park. Our first detour led us to the "watering cove". It too was well named for what it appeared to be. I went for a short swim across part of the cove to a rock in the middle and the tide was stunningly strong. It did make however a good view of the sea, divided in two by a rock spire not too far off. We continued back up and continued to find ourselves with great views, warm suns and soft beeches.

I don't mean to sound blunt, but I fear typing out each beach we stopped at will be very repetitive, both to read and write. In a nutshell we had a great hike and ended at 3:30, and killed an hour before the bus arrived to take us back to Nelson.

Some random but fun moments along the way... at one point we were passed by a father and daughter (I assume). As they passed Margaret said "awww" just enough to muffle my comment of "what a cute backpack" in reference to the mini hiking pack the girl was wearing. Margaret commented that my priorities were out of place.

In terms of wildlife there were a couple of bird spotting's but nothing spectacular. At one point a bird was fluttering... literally between us... but never staying still long enough for a picture. Later again I passed beneath a branch and was nearly deafened by a ciccata (spelling?). I was very pleased when I was able to find it and hopefully our picture turns out.

The bus ride, much like the ride in was unexciting. We got off by a fish and chips spot we'd seen earlier. It was very tasty, though we were given an obscene number of fries. Either way, looks like another relatively early night for an early start tomorrow.

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