Abel Tasman - Day 2

I don't know what woke me up first, the sun, the cold or whatever was under the tent that kept jamming into my leg. Maybe I never fell asleep in the first place. I looked over at Jane, she had the same look on her face that I imagine I had; tired, uncomfortable, and ready to hike.

Despite its beautiful beaches and wooded areas, Abel Tasman does not really lend itself to long lazy leisurely hikes. Deadlines come in the form of daylight and tidal crossings. In some cases missing the low tide means a 2 hour detour. In other cases, where there was no other way to go, missing the low tide means camping out for an extra day and trying to catch it the following day. The latter was a luxury we could not afford and suddenly I felt like I was back in Manhattan living in city life complete with all of the schedules and timetables. Still though, there is a cathartic difference between rushing to catch a subway to make it uptown for a meeting and aggressively trekking on a coastline in order to make a tidal crossing.

We were hungry. In no time, we packed up the tent and instantly our entire 2 square meter campsite, bedding, trash, and laundry were back on our backs. We sat on the beach, found some comfortable rocks, and ate a breakfast of fruit cups and energy bars. Our journey would begin with a short hike to the first tidal crossing; at least that was the plan. When we reached the crossing we found out that in our efforts to not be the slightest bit late to make the crossing, we were grossly early. We could either have waited an hour and a half to make the crossing, or taken the two hour detour. We decided as we were already up and genki, we would do the latter.

It is interesting how sometimes mistakes lead to discovery. While walking on the detour, we saw a sign for Cleopatra's pool. Neither of us had the vaguest idea what this could be, but I knew that if I did not take the detour, Bob Brier would certainly be disappointed, and I would never disappoint Bob Brier... that man has taught me so much.

We hiked on a while longer until we reached a break in the path. In one direction, we could hike another three and a half hours to Onetahuti, the next campsite. The other direction was for a one and a half hour detour to a waterfall... We chose waterfall.

Walking the steep path up with my gear on my back, I thought about Sisyphus rolling his boulder and I wondered if the hills in Hades were this narrow and steep. We managed though, and at the very end we sat down and ate peanut butter and jelly sandwiches at the foot of the waterfall.

Simply stated... amazing.

Going back down the steep path from the waterfall was surprisingly as difficult as going up. The detour took us a while, and we were still so far from Onetahuti. Although that day's trek did not have us worrying about tidal crossings, we still had to consider daylight. The light from our convenience store flashlights had already changed from that fresh store-bought bright white to a more amber color after the first night of camping. After sunset, we could not count on being able to see very much.

We reached a path alongside the beach where we walked for a while. The tide was still out and there was a tiny island that one could walk to. I wanted to walk to the island and explore a bit, but we could not risk running out of daylight, so we pressed on.

Soon after we reached the only impressive manmade thing I saw in Abel Tasman. Uncle Steve, Uncle Frans, if you are reading this, know that the suspension bridge that you built upstate will always have a special little place in the section of my hears where I reserve room for the category of "small suspension bridges used to cross rivers." That being said, this one was pretty impressive.

We stopped at another beach to put our tired feet in the cold water and noshed on some M&Ms. Here is the part of my blog where I abuse my wonderful travel partner.

"I miraculously grabbed a handfull, only to discover (to Rich's disgust) that I grabbed all blue ones! What are the chances?!? Well, we won't show you that pic of them in my mouth..."

Yea, she won't show you that picture, but I will...

As Jane said on her blog, this last stretch, though only about another hour was hard but we ganbatted. Once we arrived at Onetahuti I made us a nice dinner (which we actually got to eat on a proper picnic table.) Our luck also held out - as soon as we were ready to close up the tent it started to rain a bit.

Our trek so far: The light blue trail in the water is obviously from day 1 (kayaking) from marahau to Anchorage. The purpleish line is from Anchorage to Onetahuti (with the detour to the waterfall).

Say tuned for day 3.










Rex out.