Gilletts Down Under: South Island, Abel Tasman Great Walk

On April 23rd, we started our hike on the Abel Tasman. Named after the Dutch explorer, this is a 51 km track along the North Coast of the South Island and one of New Zealand's 9 'Great Walks'. It follows the coast through beautiful bays. An interesting part of the track is its tidal nature. There is a 6 m difference between high and low tide and you can only pass some of the track at low tide so you have to plan ahead.
We hiked the track with the Gately family from Wellington and planned a two day hike with a sleep at one of Department of Conservation Huts.
To start the hike, we took a water taxi from its parking lot via a tractor to be towed over the shallow tidal water and backed in the sea.

The Abel Tasman Aqua Taxi driver was great and showed us sites along the way for our 1 1/2 hour boat trip to the start of the track - including the split apple rock here ...

and the seal colony here. In a small rock pool, the baby seals play and swim...reminded us of the shallow pools our kids learned to swim in! Baby seals look like their coats are too big for them and are all bunched up.

We started at Totaranui and hiked for 5 1/2 hours to Bark Bay. Here are Georgina, Tessa, Rebecca and Hannah.

One of our tidal crossings...you have to cross 2 hours within low tide and we missed it by a bit so Hannah needed a lift and James rolled his pants up.

Bexs and Tessa...shoes off helping each other cross. The mud was quite squelchy and pulled you in.

Kate and Meghan on try land again.

After 5 hours Hannah was a wee tired and Kate supplied some goodies to lay as a trail ahead of her.

Swing bridge crossing

Beautiful waters, lush trees, sandy beaches. Golden sand lapped by blue-green water. Numerous Bays. Stunning

We arrive at our hut...and we were the last ones there that night and it was fully booked with 34 people all sleeping sardine style in double decker rows of 7 mattresses side by side.

What a night. Fun to eat out of our pots outdoors off our cookers but many loud snorers and sleep talkers plus a few romantic couples. The next day we have a shorter hike of 3 1/2- hours to Anchorage Bay

This is a saddle....on an altitude picture this is what you dread as you climb up one steep side and then down the next around all the many bays and inlets.