Coastal dips and river wading on a multi-day hike through New Zealand’s Abel Tasman National Park

Travel

Not every Great Walk involves summiting passes — one of New Zealand’s star trails is the 37-mile Abel Tasman Coast Track, whose gentle paths always lead back to coastal viewpoints and beaches for refreshing dips.

ByJustin Meneguzzi

Published January 15, 2024

This article was produced by National Geographic Traveller (UK).

With its immense buttress roots and leathery green leaves, the northern rātā tree isn’t to be underestimated. Carried on the wind, its seeds land in the canopies of neighbouring trees and begin to germinate. Then, over hundreds of years, each individual seedling’s spidery roots wrap around its host, eventually entombing it and consuming the rotting trunk. 

“It operates on a totally different timescale to humans,” says guide and outdoor educator Rod Morrison, as we stand at the base of a gargantuan rātā he estimates is 1,000 years old. “Other guides might be into mushrooms or birds, but I love symbiosis: how different species relate to each other.

”We’re only a few hours into our hike through Abel Tasman National Park, a sheltered paradise found at the northern tip of New Zealand’s South Island and one of the country’s smallest national parks. Over the next three days, I’ll be hiking along the 37-mile Abel Tasman Coast Track and looking out from this sea-skirting Great Walk for dusky dolphins, fur seals, little blue penguins and wekas — a ground-dwelling bird infamous for raiding camp tents in search of snacks. 

Already we’ve navigated tannin-hued marshlands, deep tunnels of rainforest and beaches flecked with tide-battered boulders. Rod is a guide with Wilsons Abel Tasman, a family-owned water taxi and tour operator with roots in the park as deep as its trees’. He’s given me a swift introduction to the reserve’s flora — teaching me how to eat the tender shoots of hardy supplejack vines, which plants can read my future and which can cure an upset stomach when boiled into a tea. 

The pace is easy-going. Together, we enter lofty forests where trees wear tutus of branching kiekie palms, then climb a series of modestly steep bends. While the coastal track is well signposted and would be simple to follow if I were hiking on my own, I’d find the tidal estuary crossings rather daunting. Timing is key: walk too fast or too slow, and you risk being blocked by the rising tide and forced to detour for hours through the mountains. Thankfully, Rod has been tramping these trails since he was a young lad and is intimately familiar with the park’s watery rhythms. 

It helps that he has some contingencies up his sleeve, too. We arrive at our first tidal crossing to discover a swollen inlet has made our passage impossible, but Rod has called ahead and a barge is waiting for us. We peel off our socks and shoes to wade out to the vessel in chilly, knee-deep waters and are ferried to the historic Meadowbank Homestead, one of two hosted lodge stays on the trail. 

Built almost 60 years before the national park was officially formed in 1942, Meadowbank housed generations of the Wilson family but now welcomes a succession of trail-weary tour guests looking to put up their feet and fill their bellies with a homecooked meal. While waiting for dinner, I peruse the family artefacts on display, including antique telephones, sewing tables and charmingly awkward photos of lanky Wilson teenagers peeling potatoes on the beach at Christmas. 

The next morning, we cross over a mudflat at low tide and follow Rod’s secret detours along overgrown goat tracks to skip the less-interesting sections of the trail. As the day wears on and we weave between beaches and forests, I realise the sea has been our constant unseen companion, cheering us on with its melodic crashes even as it stays hidden behind dense tracts of trees.

Layered against this backing track, I can make out the flutter of tiny wings as bronze-chested fantails flit between the bushes, and the calls of kākā ring like bells overhead. With their dusty, olive-coloured feathers, this endangered species of endemic parrot is easy to hear but hard to spot. My first encounter with one is with its shadow, its broad wingspan giving me a giddy thrill as it passes overhead.

“It wasn’t too long ago that we didn’t have any birdsong in the park,” says Rod, recalling a childhood when the trees were silent. “These birds evolved without predators and were totally defenceless when rats, weasels and other vermin came with the first Europeans.” 

A joint effort between New Zealand’s Department of Conservation and supporting NGOs has helped remove these pests and boost native bird populations. Now the forests are singing again. From a bluff overlooking Adele and Fisherman Islands, Rod explains how birdsong was played on speakers to entice birds to migrate into the park.  

The sunset is being smothered by woolly clouds by the time we emerge from the scrub at Torrent Bay. We cross over the beach to the second Wilson family lodge, where we’ll be spending the night. At dinner, Rod mentions that the bay glows an enchanting blue with bioluminescent plankton when the weather is right, so after clearing my plate, I creep down to the water’s edge to try my luck. I test the waves with a fistful of sand and — nothing. 

Standing sheepishly in the dark with my tired feet sinking into the wet sand, I look out over the blackened bay, tasting the salt on the air and listening to the birdcalls bidding good night in the estuary behind me. This is all the magic I need.

How to do it: Wilsons Abel Tasman runs self-guided and guided multiday walks in Abel Tasman National Park, as well as kayak tours and cruises. Five-day guided hiking packages start at NZ$2,750 (£1,320) per person and include all meals, transport, accommodation and useful hiking gear.

Published in the Jan/Feb 2024 issue of National Geographic Traveller (UK)

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