Abel Tasman National Park (Feb. 16-17)

Although I’ve spent many a summer season wearing flip-flops (jandals in NZ, btw), and many other seasons besides (you mean most people don’t consider flip-flops appropriate footwear after Thanksgiving in Vermont?), it had heretofore never proved detrimental to my personal health. Alas, as prescribed by Murphy’s Law, while in Wellington I finally suffered a flip-flop-related injury while walking to the beach.

Scenic overlook

To go into gory detail, I tripped on the sidewalk, jamming my toe into the ground and gashing out a good chunk of skin. Fortunately, we stumbled (literally) to a bakery that provided us with enough gauze and band aids to stop the bleeding. I think we probably should’ve gone to the ER, as it was a pretty sizable chunk, but ended up toughing it out, keeping my streak of never going to the ER alive.

Unfortunately, the backpackers’ life involves lots of walking, even when you’re backpacking by car. With the toe out of commission, we spent several days in Nelson convalescing, which involved lots of couch time (thank you, Andrew!) and visits to the numerous local breweries. Not a bad place to recuperate, I’d say. But with our Couchsurfing host Andrew leaving for the weekend, we decided it was time to resume our travels and see if I was up for some walking.

On Friday, we traveled to Abel Tasman National Park, located in the northwest tip of the South Island. On the map, it looks like it should be less than an hour from Nelson, but that doesn’t take into account the fact that you need to cross a pretty serious mountain range on the way, which easily takes 45 minutes itself. Like all NZ mountain roads, it’s steep and ridiculously winding. And as with all the mountain roads we’ve driven on this summer, we saw several bikers riding up, and we decided yet again that none of them looked like they were having a good time. To each his own, I suppose though…

The famed golden beaches of Abel Tasman

Although Abel Tasman is NZ’s smallest national park, it is proclaimed to be the “most beautiful” by all the locally produced travel brochures (go figure). We spent the evening at a backpackers next to the entrance of the park so that we’d be ready for an early hike in the morning. The Barn in Marahau is the first hostel we’ve stayed at that’s made any mention to the most feared of the backpacker parasites – the bed bug. A sign posted in our room said that all linens and towels were provided by the hostel (even the towels, what? Lots of hostels routinely charge a $2 fee to use a duvet for bedding) and asked us to keep any suspect bedding or packs out of the room. This sign led us to believe that the Barn must have recently been victim of a bed bug outbreak, which seriously makes my skin crawl. Andrew’s sister-in-law Shanna had a bed bug scare in her previous apartment, so we are all too familiar with all the grossness that entails.

On the coastal track at Abel Tasman

On a happier note, Abel Tasman does feature one of NZ’s “Great Walks”, tramps (Kiwi for “hikes”) that are usually three to five days long and involve stays in the various huts along the trail. While many people do a combination of hiking and kayaking in Abel Tasman, we opted to walk the first 12 km of the trail and sail back to the park entrance. The walk was gentle enough that I was able to wear flip-flops (I know what you’re thinking … she’s still wearing flip-flops after the catastrophe? But they’re necessary as I’m still unable to wear close-toed shoes).

Our sailboat

The walk afforded some pretty views of the secluded golden beaches, and the sailing trip was good fun. Our captain took us on a three hour tour of the coast (really, the good vantage point for exploring Abel Tasman), including the seal colony at Pinnacle Island (they were sleeping) and Split Apple Rock (significant rock formation in Maori culture). Sailing really was a great option for seeing the park. Although most people choose to kayak, I always try to avoid kayaking whenever possible (sorry, Mom! But you should definitely kayak when you come to visit us…).

In dire need of a hair covering

Split Apple Rock