January 6

End of Abel Tasman Track

I got up at dawn to prepare for the walk to the end of the track. I thought I might get the 12:25 bus back to Nelson, but I didn't need to rush, since there was another one at 5:30. The only advantage of getting back earlier is that this might make it easier to get a ferry tomorrow to to Wellington. I didn't have reservations yet, and was concerned about missing it.

When I got out of my bivy sack, I saw that the sun had recently risen, and the sky was still orange. I took a walk around a 45 minute loop, visiting Pitt's Head, and then came back to camp and fixed breakfast. It was cloudy when I got up, but the sky cleared quickly as the sun rose. The people in the next tent had seen the opossum last night also. It had gotten into their food and eaten an apple.

After breakfast, I went down to the beach for a morning swim. The water was cold, but I swam a long time, from one end of the small, sheltered cove to the other, and back. The water was clear and calm. A few other people tried the water as well, but didn't stay in long.

By the time I packed, it was 10 AM, so it seemed unlikely I would get the 12:25 bus, a three hour walk away. But I walked fast, so it didn't seem impossible. On the other hand, maybe I didn't want to walk fast, since this is a nice track to take one's time on. I would have to see how it went. It was mostly sunny now, as I returned to the Anchorage, and then climbed into the hills. This probably wasn't the most direct route, but I got good views of Torrent Bay, now full at high tide, from the hills above. The track crossed the Moncrieff private nature preserve next. There are several possible trails, and I didn't take the shortest of them.

The walk through the forest was beautiful, with many fern trees in the valleys, while the high ridges were dry and dusty. At noon, I arrived at the next campsite, near Yellow Point. By now I knew I would not be catching the early bus, for sure. I walked out to the viewpoint there. I could have used some more water, but didn't want to walk all the way down to the campsite, far down the hill, to fetch it. At the next bay, I tried getting down to the beach, because the turquoise water was really beautiful, but there was actually no beach at the bottom: the tide was too high and covered it entirely.

I found some water at a stream along the route, and continued on to Apple Tree Bay, stopping at the long beach here for lunch. I changed into a bathing suit, planning to stay here until 3:30, since this was a nice beach, about an hour from the end of the track. There were a lot of birds along the shore, including black ones with long orange beaks. Mountains were visible in the distance, across the water. Several tour groups of kayakers paddled by, like flocks of ducks. I went in for a swim. The water felt warmer than this morning.

While I was swimming, I saw two women waving from the beach. It was Kay and Connie, who had also stopped for lunch while kayaking, and planned to stay until 3:00 and catch the same bus back. They had stayed just over the hill from me last night, at Watering Cove. Sea kayaks hold a lot of stuff, so they had been eating well, and were finishing off a box of wine with lunch. They offered me a cup. They said they had just been watching more penguins out at the island offshore, and that one was swimming around their boats. I took pictures for them just before they departed, and left a half hour later.

I decided to carry my sandals for a while upon leaving the beach. I climbed steeply up a poorly marked path, with ropes, webbing and some stairs for assistance. The track then followed the hills back, near the waterfront with plenty of open ocean views, finally crossing a long causeway over an empty Sandy Bay. The shoes were unnecessary until the gravelly causeway at the end.

There was a cafe at the end of the track, next to the Marahau Information Shelter at the end of the causeway. I had a ginger beer, and then a blueberry thick shake (a milkshake with ice cream). Blueberries have seeds in New Zealand. The burgers here looked delicious. If I had more time, I might have ordered one, but I had only a half-hour wait for the bus. Kay and Connie arrived as well. A New Zealand man noticed my walking stick and asked if I always walk with a stick. Walking sticks aren't used much by the locals, apparently.

The bus got into Nelson around 7:30. Kay and Connie got off just before me, at the YHA. It would be the last time I saw them. I got some information about the ferry to Wellington at the hostel, and then went down to Little Rock Cafe, a crowded place I had seen earlier, for dinner. There was a 45 minute wait for a table, so I went to the bar and ordered a mussel, fish and shrimp pizza with a beer.

As I was finishing the pizza and starting on a Black Mac, I suddenly began to feel dizzy and ill, like I was going to pass out. I told the bartender, and he took me to sit in the restaurant, which was no longer full, and gave me some water. He asked if I had been out in the sun, and I said that I had. It was possible that I had been dehydrated from being in the sun so long at the beach and not drinking enough water. I felt better after drinking a couple glasses of water, and walked back to the hostel and went to bed.

Copyright Scott A. Yost, 1996. All rights reserved.