July 22, 2010
“’I don't see any connection with Vietnam, Walter’ ‘Well, there isn’t a literal connection.’” – The Dude and Walter, The Big Lebowski
Time for a flashback to travel. Way back on the first days of June I was in the doldrums of early winter on the West Coast of the South Island. Incessant rain coupled with loneliness was dragging me down. Tyler tossed me a lifeline with an invite to surf and camp in the cold and rain in Kaikoura. After that excellent weekend I was back in Nelson, the artsy city at the north end of the island. Despite its moniker as the Sunshine Capital of NZ, I saw nothing but rain in the few days I was there. This put me at a crossroads. To the west lay Abel Tasman, the crown jewel of NZ National Parks. To the east lay Picton and the ferry back to Wellington and the North Island. The prospect of hiking Abel Tasman in a near-freezing rain was not appealing but the idea of bailing on the South Island without a single multi-day hike was really disappointing. Weather forecasts were sketchy and contradictory but I decided to gamble and book a trip through the park. When I got to the departure town of Marahau, my fortunes hadn’t turned. It was gloomy and grey, the town was empty and ominous thunderheads were blooming overhead--hardly the welcome I was hoping for. In the 3 minutes it took me to fill out paperwork, rain began to fall steadily. It was a fitful night with visions of hiking in soaked clothes and shivering myself to sleep. Instead, I woke to clearing skies and the placid, silent waters of the Tasman Bay at low tide--perfect weather for an expedition.
Abel Tasman National Park was the mooring place for the Dutch Explorer of the same name. He arrived in 1642 some 125 years before Captain Cook. Local Maori greeted his arrival by attacking them from a canoe, killing a couple of men. Tasman pulled up anchor and cruised off but not before naming the land Staten Landt. Later, some Dutch cartographers named it Nova Zeelandia after the Dutch province of Zeeland. That was anglicized when the British began colonizing the islands. What remains is the bigger question of why Tasman bailed after a couple of tattooed locals in grass skirts waving stone clubs paddled up to them in a wood canoe. Sure it was intimidating but the Maori were still living in the Stone Age and Tasman would have had such radically advanced tools as clothing, metal and gunpowder at his disposal. Plus, he was in paradise. Tasman and Golden Bays are calm, fertile waters sheltered from the harsh southern winds from Antarctica, populated by numerous fish, seals birds and frequented by migrating whales and dolphins. The rocky cliffs are broken up by numerous protected coves of coarse, white sand.
This natural beauty has not gone unnoticed by New Zealanders as it is the most popular National Park in the country. I was told that 90% of the park’s traffic is during January—the heart of summer for the Southern Hemisphere. The Lonely Planet Guide recommends attempting to book hut and campsite reservations at least 6 months in advance for the summer season and even then to be prepared for disappointment. In regard to overcrowding, I felt pretty safe venturing a day-of booking in the rainy gloom of June. And I was right. My plan was for a full-day guided kayak tour of the first third of the park, camping in the Anchorage Bay Hut overnight and then a full day hike to Onetahuti where a water taxi would bring me back to the start at Marahau. The guided kayak part of the tour was a lot of fun. Our group was about 16 people, inclusive of the guide. We were partnered up in tandem kayaks and I was gifted a completely useless Chinese girl who could not have confirmed more stereotypes. She spent a lot of time not paddling and taking pictures of herself and her friend. Luckily her English was terrible and the whole sight became a running joke between myself and the rest of the group. When we broke for lunch, the Chinese girl, her friend and a couple more pairs jumped on the water taxi and called it a day. I was left with our guide, Mark, 3 Scottish travelers and an Israeli. We spent the afternoon exploring and becoming fast friends. About an hour before sun down, Mark dropped us off at the Anchorage Bay Hut with a few handy tips and wished us luck.
Ryan and Julie and Brian are from Falkirk, Scotland somewhere between Glasgow and Edinburgh. Upon meeting them, I tipped my hand as a dork and asked about the Wheel of Falkirk—an engineering marvel. They laughed and admitted they had never seen it but were nice enough to keep talking to me anyway. Ryan and Julie are a young couple who were tired of quiet life in Scotland and were looking for a change. They came to NZ a few month before I did and settled into jobs and started saving for travel. Brian, their friend from home, was hitting those early 30s blues and decided to uproot for some change himself. Having spent some time in Australia working and fishing, he came across the Tasman Sea to visit his friends and never quite managed to leave. Having forgotten my camera, Julie generously offered to share her photos when the trip was through. Omri, the fifth in our group was in his early 20s and recently discharged from the Israeli Army. He was traveling the world alone, armed with endless energy and a chutzpa that was endearing and likeable. At the hut, we ran into 3 more Israeli travelers and the 8 of us sat around the cabin playing cards, chatting, rotating wet clothes in front of the heater and sharing dinner as dusk was replaced by candle light.
Around 8pm we set off down the beach under a clear and moonless night. Every footstep was punctuated by the dancing sparkles of bioluminescence in the sand. At the north end of Anchorage Bay was Elephant Rock and behind it were a couple of caves. Mark suggested we check them out after dark. We crawled around in the shadowy crevasse until the walls opened up around us. Dotting the ceiling and walls were glow worms. These strange larvae hang a thread of glowing snot out of their body to entice insects. Walking into a dark cave faint pinpricks of light hovered overhead. Brian decided to turn the flashlight on them and we were greeted with a cave full of giant crawling wetas, a cricket-like insect about the size of your hand. When surprised by them, they look to be the size of a pterodactyl…a harmless, non-stinging, non-poisonous pterodactyl. Eventually, we wandered back to the hut and resumed story sharing late into the night.
In the morning we set off on our hike. The Abel Tasman Track has 2 shortcuts, both of which are only available within hours of low tide and can cut several kilometers off the trek. Why anyone would want to shorten a walk through paradise is beyond me, but the time restrictions have consequences. Walking tidal flats is not normally a big deal but when the tide swings 4 vertical meters (12.5 ft), the ocean comes back in a hurry. We opted for the safer, longer route and managed the 20 or so kilometers in a couple of hours.
Unlike January park-goers, we were greeted with solitude. Maybe twice hikers passed us going the other way offering a smile and quick wave before disappearing into the undulating trail cocooned in tangled vines and lush overgrowth. The day was perfect. The sun beat down on our shoulders, casting cones of light through the sporadic gaps in foliage and illuminating the orange and black fungi, the turquoise waters of the bay and the brilliant greens of life all around us. When the trail would curve outward to a vantage point we would stand as a group, panting in silence, admiring the infinite views of pristine water and unscathed land. Onetahuti beach opened up before us not 10 minutes before our water taxi was due to arrive. We had put in 7 solid hours of hiking and I celebrated by walking barefoot in the frigid water. The day was perfect.
