Ever Seen a Tractor on a Beach?

We arrived in the little town of Marahau on Sunday afternoon. We passed water that kept getting more and more shades of blue- it reminds me a lot of Hawaii. So Sunday night after getting settled in our hostel I decided to undertake my weekly long training walk as to make sure I got it in but not under-do it by combining it with site seeing. So we took off for Abel Tasman National Park and I took off at a crazy pace and missed most of what I was passing. Fortunately, we had today!

Ever seen a four-wheel drive tractor? They use them to launch water taxis at low tide when they have to get the speed boats in the water. We’ll post pictures when I get them together. The company we went with had a trailer, the bottom of which was about 3.5 feet off the ground- big tires & raised up. So they load up the trailer, then back it out into the ocean and put you on a boat. Other companies load their passengers in the boat that’s on the trailer and then tow the whole thing out to the ocean and drop the boat in the water. It’s pretty crazy!

So anyway, we took the water taxi up to Torrent Bay which, according to all signage, is 4 hours walk from Marahau. Well, we’re not sure how they measure their time but given our picnic stop and wandering around the beautiful golden beaches on the way back it took us a bit longer and we’re guessing it was about 8 miles. It was a beautiful hike through more rainforest with lookouts over the many bays that make the Abel Tasman area famous. Since we were going at a slower pace we stopped to admire the views, inspect the random bushes that were producing colorful berries, check out Alice-in-Wonderland style mushrooms growing on the side of the path. Emrys took off a couple times to explore “off-road” up creeks and streams

Next stop is Blenheim which is wine country and apparently they’re in harvest season.