The Abel Tasman Coast Track

My first New Zealand “GREAT WALK.” There are nine of them and they are supposedly New Zealand’s most “premier” hiking tracks. Of course, it’s all really debatable. Because they are so heavily promoted, a lot of people are turned off by them and how popular they are.

Well, I’m a tourist. So I’m just going to enjoy it all.

There are nice huts in the middle of each of these multi-day hikes and it’s kind of pricey to stay in them because of how many people go through the walks each year.

The Abel Tasman Coast Track happens to be the most popular of all of the walks and it’s a year-round track meaning it’s regularly traveled even in the winter. It’s known for its beaches.

If I am going to be completely honest, I was not that excited about this Great Walk.

Beaches?? I’m from California! We see lots of beaches! We have great beaches! Some of the best! But everyone else I was traveling with seemed fairly excited about it, so I thought that it couldn’t be too bad. It was the most popular track after all.

It might be because it was my very first multi-day hike, but I have to say that it was one of the best experiences of my life. I absolutely loved it.

A lot of preparation went into this hike because I had no idea what to expect from four days of hiking. Weather, food, clothing, food, safety, FOOD. I was really worried about food. I get hungry a lot.

Breakfast: Two bags of instant oatmeal. One banana.
Lunch: Three peanut butter banana tortilla sandwiches. (Tortillas are flatter than bread!!) This sounds dry and disgusting, but I loved it. Another banana. A nature valley bar.
Dinner: Two packs of instant noodles. Canned chicken. Probably should have bought a carrot or two.
Snacks: Potato chips. (It was $0.49!) Dried fruit + nut + chocolate mix.
Drinks: WATER WATER WATER WATER

It was nice eating through this each day and feeling the bag get lighter. Bananas are heavier than I ever imagined.

As for the weather, we were going to walk the track in Winter. There’s a high chance of rain. It’s going to be COLD. I basically became a Kathmandu walking advert for this walk. Lots of thermals. Waterproof pants and jacket. fast drying polypropylene or wool clothing. Long thick wool socks.  I didn’t get any good hiking shoes (to my regret) because I wouldn’t have time to really break them in. I didn’t realize how much my shoes would be destroyed by walking this track though.

So DAY 1. We boarded a water taxi. It was going to take us out to the middle of the track and we would have to walk all the way back to our cars. The reason we did it backwards was because of the weather. It was predicted to rain the last two days of our trip, and we didn’t want to be trapped by the rising tide. As soon as we got off of the water taxi, we essentially had two hours to make it to our hut for that night because the water would rise so much that part of the walk would become inaccessible. My first thought that day was that it was SUNNY. Also, your body gets pretty warm hiking (especially with a huge pack on your back) fairly fast. I did not need all of those layers I brought with me…

We made it into the tidal crossing in time for the water to be relatively shallow. Completely dry in most of it actually.

We walked through and found our hut for that night. We had the rest of the day to just go exploring!I was surprised at how incredibly fast the tide rises. You can watch the water line and literally see it creep up to your feet. By the end of the day, there were boats afloat and the entire place was filled.

The hut was nice because the only ones in it was us! (and one other random guy.)

The second day took us higher into the bush, so we got some amazing views of the beach down below. There was another tidal crossing, but we just took a high tide route (with cool bridges!) that let us bypass all of the water.

The third day, we expected rain. A lot of it. We all put on our rain proof clothes and set out hiking. It got hot. There was no rain. At all. The entire day. We got lucky!

We had to get to another tidal crossing and wait until the tide was low enough for us to cross. There was a high tide route to avoid the whole thing, but it was a detour that was 70 minutes longer than the main route which was already 40 minutes long itself. I took off my shoes and walked through lots of shells and mushy mud. Our hut this night was probably the nicest. There was a huge kitchen and eating area and individual rooms which each had 8 beds in them.

The last day, it finally rained. But it wasn’t heavy rain. Just lots and lots of sprinkling. Very light. Kind of like a light annoyance. Nothing too serious. Just wrapped my camera in a plastic bag and kept walking. The rain was actually kind of nice. The place had a lot of clouds and the last stretch of the track had lots of fog.

I finished my first great walk!!

It was really amazing and I hope to do lots more multi-day hikes in the future. I woke up every morning to watch the sunrise. And there is just something incredibly nice about being able to wake up and have this amazing view in front of you. You don’t have to walk out too far. There are no other distractions. No internet or electricity. It’s very calming. Having lots of people to walk the track with also helped. But I’m definitely interested in walking one alone.

We’ll see what happens in the future.