I have not done very much hiking, and have not actually hiked for more than one day (i.e. have not hiked, camped, hiked, then camped again without going to a car) so I was very excited to get the double experience of hiking in New Zealand and going for a real hike. After our stop in Motueka, we continued on to Abel Tasman National Park, which is located on the north coast of the south island. We arrived a little after noon and decided to catch lunch and a beer at the last part of civilization we would see for a couple days, a place called Mac's (also the name of the beer they served). Jake and I sat down to a wonderful view of the ocean and enjoyed the tranquil scene. My excitement was growing.
Around 1:30 or 2 we began our journey into the woods with food, sleeping bags, 4 liters of water, a tent and some clothes; pretty standard camping stuff. We hiked for about 2 hours, hugging the coast and enjoying the cover of ferns and trees to shield us from the sun (probably about 80-85 during the day) and then decided we'd stop and go for a swim at one of the many beaches we were passing. So, down we went to Appletree Beach and enjoyed our first of many dips in the mighty Pacific Ocean. After cooling off (the water was refreshing, i.e. cool) we had a snack of sweaty cheese and sweaty pepperoni (always a good sign when your first snack already has elements of sweat) and threw the frisbee around for a little while.
We got back on the trail and plugged along for another couple of hours until we reached our resting spot for the night, Watering Cove. After a pretty steep descent from the main trail, we came upon a campsite unlike any I have ever seen. We were feet away from a nice sandy beach, which had rocks on both sides and a stunning view of Tasman Island with mountains behind. And we were sharing this treat with only 4 other people, which meant we basically had our run of things. So, we took a quick swim and then set about cooking some dinner (soup) and chilled a bottle of wine and a beer in a nearby stream for later. After enjoying some food, we played a game of cribbage and then kicked back with some wine to trade stories and watch the sunset. We were treated to a great light show from the stars and I glimpsed my first view of the infamous Southern Cross constellation, which was great. We tried as hard as we could to figure out how the moon progresses from no moon to full moon and what the difference between a solar eclipse and a lunar eclipse was, but didn't really come up with much. We headed to bed a couple hours after the sun went down.
Our Sunday began by watching a very nice sunrise over the mountains across the ocean from us. We had a breakfast of granola bars and apples (Gala! purchased on the side of the road as we entered Abel Tasman!) and then headed out on the next part of our journey. We traversed some mud flats because that was the low tide short cut and decided to have a peanut butter and jelly snack on the next beach we came to. As we were eating, a woman in her late 20's and her mother came by and talked with us. She saw we had a frisbee and asked if we played and might like to throw around. So, after our eating, the 3 of us went out onto the sand bar and threw for about 30 minutes; a very nice break from the hiking. Sunday was giving us a bit of rain to deal with, nothing sustained, but just enough to have us a little worried for the evening. We continued on the trail until coming along a wonderful little spot called Medlands Beach where we decided to have a snack and take a swim. As we ate another round of sweaty pepperoni and still sweatier cheese, we played another game of cribbage and enjoyed the company of a couple crazy looking ducks.
After our stop, we plugged through the rest of the hike to our resting spot for the night, Tonga Quarry Beach. We again had a wonderful beach, with a wonderful view and a nice stream to chill our beers. We cooked a dinner of packaged tortellini, and then settled into another game of cribbage and a bottle of Pinot Noir that I'd purchased at one of the wineries. About 3 hands into our game the rain started again, so we went to secure our tent and gear. The moisture subsided so we went out to finish the game and start the wine. As we finished the game, the rains came again and we decided we'd just stay on the beach and wait for the water to pass. After some minutes of just sitting on the sand in the rain we decided we'd better at least seek shelter under the trees, so we moved to a nearby picnic table and resumed our conversation. The rain continued but we were decently covered and all of our gear was fine, so we just enjoyed the quiet (the other 5 people at the site had all gone into their tents). As we sat talking at the table, we were joined by what appeared to be a very furry cat with a long tale. We had no flashlight with us, so we kinda just watched this thing move around us, as Jake speculated that perhaps the animal was a baby puma or a baby jaguar. The rain died down and we decided to head back to the beach and away from whatever this cat thing was. So, we settled back into our spot by a rock and were quickly chased back to our tent by another onslaught of rain. We decided we better just go to sleep rather than risk another encounter with the cat thing.
The next morning was spent drying all of our wet gear in the hot sun and readying ourselves for the short hike to the beach we had scheduled a water taxi from at 2:30 PM. As we were cleaning up we could see that paw prints had been left in the night leading right up to the door of our tent. Everything dried out quite well and we were on our way for the last 30 minutes of hiking. The beach we came upon was again beautiful and we chilled the 2 beers we had not drank the night before in a sheltered stream for later. We decided we'd try to take an earlier water taxi back to our car so that we could have an easier drive to our next stop. After changing our reservation, we enjoyed some swimming, some more photos and those 2 beers. The water taxi whizzed us back to base camp in about 20 minutes or so (what had taken us nearly 10 hours to hike), and we enjoyed a beer and sandwich back at Mac's before heading out on our next adventure. I think we hiked a total of about 15 miles over the two days, with some pretty steep grades and we were both happy to be back sitting in civilization.
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