Some Kayaking in Abel Tasman
Trip Start
Oct 16, 2007
1
43
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Trip End
May 09, 2008
Marahau, New Zealand
Saturday, January 19, 2008
The water taxi ride out was actually really rough and choppy, and we were mostly slamming into the oncoming waves. Frank loved it, but I was getting a bit seasick, bleh! During the taxi ride, our guide told us that the conditions were too rough for us to kayak from Tonga Bay, and that we'd try to kayak instead from Anchorage Bay northbound towards Tonga Bay, and see how far we could get depending on the conditions.
The kayaking was great in Anchorage Bay as the weather was fantastic, the water crystal clear, and the scenery wasn't bad either. We kayaked about 2 hours in the morning along the beach but after we got out of the shelter of the bay, we hit some strong wind and waves. So we kayaked back to a secluded part of the bay for coffee. Coffee was followed by lunch, and then we just hung around a while to see if conditions would improve. We gave it another try after lunch and kayaked across the bay again, but the conditions were still too rough, and so we paddled slowly back towards our pick-up point in Anchorage Bay. Due to the rough conditions, all the water taxis were delayed and we had to wait an hour for our taxi to pick us up. We had a great time kayaking, but felt we overpaid a bit for our trip. We didn't get to see as much of the beautiful coastline and many bays of Abel Tasman as we wanted, not even via the water taxi! Our experience was basically a ½ day kayak trip around one of the closest bays to Marahau.
The next day we decided to see more of Abel Tasman, this time from the land. We caught another water taxi up to Bark Bay, and planned to hike the Abel Tasman Coastal Track back to Torrent Bay, a 2-3 hour walk. The water taxi out to Bark Bay was very smooth. The conditions for kayaking were definitely better than the day before - darn, this would've been a better day to kayak! Anyway, it was a beautiful day, nice and sunny, and the water taxi raced through the waves to Bark Bay. Bark Bay was bustling with activity. There were lots of kayakers, hikers, and quite a few campers. The entire Abel Tasman Coastal Track is supposed to be a 3-5 day tramp, with many huts and campgrounds along the track. The camp actually looked quite nice, with great facilities--we wished we had the time to camp out there.
The track between Bark Bay and Torrent Bay was nice. Surprisingly the track was mainly forest-covered with amazing tall fern trees. Only every once in a while we would see the actual coastline and ocean below. It would've been great if we had more views of the ocean along the way, but it was still very lovely and the weather couldn't be beat. When we finally arrived in Torrent Bay all hot and sweaty, we took a nice dip in the ocean. Frank did a couple of body surfing runs. Unfortunately he forgot he had his sunglasses on while bodysurfing, and whoops, he lost them! He was quite pissed about it (they were quite nice), but oh well, what can you do?
That evening we ended up driving from Marahau towards Picton. It ended up getting late, and Frank pointed out we could've stayed in a nice (and free) rest stop. However I wanted to push on a bit further in anticipation of finding another nicer spot. We ended up finding no other rest stops for another ½ hr, and as it was getting quite dark, we ended up staying at a DOC campsite in Pelorus Bridge.
