Walk

Marita3
Mark & Helen Syrett
Thu 8 Jan 2015 20:56
40:49.873S 172:47.526E
Thursday 8 January

This part of the Abel Tasman coast provides wonderful walking but there is no road access except at either end, at Marahau in the south and Totaranui in the north being about 48 km apart. The route is well marked and there are camping huts and grounds all the way round at designated spots. Book your hut/tent site, put on the backpack loaded with clothes, tent, sleeping bag, cooking utensils, food and other necessities and off you tramp for 3 or 4 days OR do a day walk and return to the Mighty at night. 
We had booked a water taxi so that we could do a day walk without having to re-trace our tracks—the water taxis run between seven calling points including the start and stop points at the south and north ends. It is a really well run system, as all NZ tourist businesses seem to be, in that you can walk and return by boat, you can boat to a point and walk back or any other combination you care to think of. We did a 12.4 km tramp estimated to take about 3.5 hours. 
The route passed our camp site
 
and then across the sand estuary
we heard and saw crickets
looked at ferns
ageing woodland
and finally arrived at Anchorage Bay where there was a very impressive Hut each room having 8 or 10 bunks and a large meeting room with cooking area—bring your own stove! The campers could not use this facility.

We climbed aboard our water taxi and took off——we now know that everything the Kiwis do has to be done as fast as possible so we were prepared.
we picked up some overtired kayakers at another beach (unscheduled stop)
and returned to base. The tide goes out a long way so they drive the boats up onto the trailer which is in the water ready and waiting and the boat skipper then jumps onto the tractor and drives the tractor/boat combination back down the road to the base with us all still on board!
We found a freedom campsite further north into the National Park adjacent to the Waitapu River—very peaceful as we sip our way through a bottle of the local wine!