After our salmon feast (thanks Sammy) we decided to stay at the seaside Totaranui DOC campsite ready to start walking a section of the Abel Tasman Coast track. We went for a brief swim on arrival, the sea is actually starting to feel like there’s less risk of hypothermia now!
The beach was massive, golden sands, empty, contained more bird footprints than human ones and gave you entertainment in the form of fishing albatross (which did on fact turn out to be an Australasian gannet, but looked impressive nonetheless!).
The next day Cat rose early to see a beautiful sunrise, soon after which Eddie also decided to wake up and put himself into a cupboard.
We soon set out for a loop walk at the very north end of the park. We started by climbing Gibbs Hill with views over the peninsula, then followed the coast back around to the campsite. After passing Whariwharangi hut and having lunch we headed to the seal colony at separation point. On the way down to the lighthouse we saw two seals playing and swimming together just off the coast, looking to be having a great time in the clear blue sea. We wandered around the peninsula but saw nothing better than we saw from above so climbed back up to continue south on the great walk track. We stopped again for second lunch on the beach on the way back to Totaranui campsite and devoured the rest of our butties while Eddie practiced his Weka whacking (and as the cheeky birds keep trying to steal his food who can blame him?). We waded through the estuary back to camp, which wasn’t enough for sweaty sweaty Adam who had a full on dunk before arriving back at the van.
Celebrating our first time arriving to our evenings campsite before 4pm for possibly the whole holiday, we had a quick beer each then headed to the sea for more swimming. Cat took first turn and got so distracted by her new friend Sean the seal (he swam so close she could have touched him! She didn’t, she was in fact slightly intimidated, he was quite a chubster) then Ray (guess what he was? We have an imaginative naming strategy!) Who Cat wasn’t quite sure if he stung or not but had a suspicious enough looking tail fin thing that she stayed well away (not to mention the fact he was easily a full armspan across). After a brief sunbathe on a rocky island she returned to the beach to find both Adam and Eddie flapping (literally) very enthusiastically and giggling their metaphorical socks off and having a great time. By this time it was getting late so we all took the long (approx 2 min) journey back home to finish Sammy with some sauteed potatoes and white wine to wash it all down. Yum!
As we’d found ourselves in such a nice place, with nice weather, we decided to continue around Abel Tasman for another day. The sun over the bay in he morning was spectacular!
(Sir Bratch 2019, everyone’s favourite meteorologist)
We headed south along the coast track, finding new bays and birds along the way. After crossing the Awaroa inlet at low tide, and walking along the runway, we took a lunch break at the luxury end of the National park – Arawoa lodge. Perfect for chips and cider. To make a loop walk, we carried on to Onetahuti bay where after a brief swim, our water taxi arrived to return us to the campsite. On the way we saw stingrays ( yes, the Ray that Cat swam with was a stingray! Insert Steve Irwin joke here….) and an octopus being eaten by a seal.
We took a quick wander to Wainui bay waterfalls on the drive back into civilisation, another great walk in the Abel Tasman national park! Now we can really see why it is such a popular place!
Parenting Responsibly 