Over the Wellington Anniversary weekend, Lucas and I hiked some of the Abel Tasman track and it was sublime. White sandy beaches, turquoise sea and wonderful sunshine; we could well have been in the Caribbean! It was so stunning so I wanted to share some photographs and an itinerary and tips for what we did, as I know from experience that this can be really useful.

Wellington Anniversary, in case you don’t know, is the nearest Monday to the 22 January, so it was hot hot hot on the Abel Tasman trail. We were in the park for three days and two nights and it was warm, lovely and hot in the afternoons. There was some strong wind sometimes but on the whole, it was a pretty lovely time of year to be there.

We did this trip from our home in Wellington without a car so we flew to Nelson and stayed a night there either side of the trip. Nelson is only a 25 min flight from Welly, so it felt like we were on our doorstep really. It is also a really nice town to visit.

As we only had three days to hike the trail it meant we couldn’t do the whole trail as it is pretty long and can take up to five days. We decided to take three days and do two-thirds of the trail. This is how it worked out for us:

Abel Tasman in 3 days

Itinerary for doing the Abel Tasman in three days:

Day 1, Friday: Marahau to Torrent Bay

  • Took the bus from Nelson to Mārahau where the trail starts.
  • With Mārahau Sea Kayaks, we did the first leg of the trail by sea. We left our kayak at Observation Beach and then hiked over to Anchorage where the kayak company had left our bags for us. This made for a four-hour kayak and a one hour hike. (Disclaimer – I would suggest that if you are thinking of doing kayaking check what the wind speed is. We did it on a 15-knot day and it was hectic as! We were struggling and although we saw one seal it was hard and exhausting – maybe not the best way to spend the first day.)
  • We then hiked two hours (it was high tide) from Anchorage to Torrent Bay where we had booked a doc campsite. This campsite was so so lovely – I highly recommend it. It’s sheltered and by a beautiful inlet and there weren’t too many mosquitoes.

Day 2, Saturday: Torrent Bay to Awaroa

  • On our second day, we hiked from Torrent Bay to Awaroa. This was meant to take eight hours, but in the end, it only took us five and a half. It was quite hilly but not too bad and there are so many beautiful beaches. If we had known it wouldn’t take us so long then we would have stopped off much more frequently.
  • We stayed the night at Awaroa Campsite which is on the inlet. This campsite is ok but not as beautiful as Torrent Bay.
  • Spoiler – There is a lovely beer and pizza bar at Awaroa Lodge – yes it is amazing and it takes card payment! An Oasis in the desert!

Day 3, Sunday: Awaroa (Meant to be Toraranui) back to Marahau

  • Our itinerary for Sunday was to hike from Awaroa to Tōtaranui which would take about three hours. I have to confess though, that we decided not to do this! The inlet can only be crossed at low tide, which, when we were there was either 3 am or 3 pm. We had arranged a water taxi to collect us at 1:45 pm so we could either have got up really early and crossed or if we waited for the later crossing we would have missed the taxi. Our decision was to call the taxi and be collected from Awaroa instead.
  • Although it was a shame we didn’t complete the hike that we had planned, it was lovely to spend the morning swimming and chilling on the beautiful deserted Awaroa beach. The Aqua Taxi was fine with changing the plan so it was all good!
  • We then caught the 4 O’Clock bus back to Nelson and spent the night there.

Places/Companies we used:

Flights: Jetstar

Campsites: DOC website

Where we stayed in Nelson: Bridge Backpackers, which was super convenient, clean and cheap.

Bus Company we used: InterCity Nelson

Water Taxi Company: Aqua Taxi 

Kayaks: Mārahau Sea Kayaks

The food we took for two people for a three-day hike:

We did our shop in the countdown in Nelson the night before and this is what we took. It was more than enough, especially since we found the Awaroa Pizza bar!

  • 2 x Backcountry meals
  • 2 x 3 Packs of pizza rolls
  • 1 x Packet of Crackers
  • 2 x Packets of Tuna each
  • 1 x Bag of Scroggin
  • 1 x Bag of Nuts
  • 1 x packet of OSM Breakfast Bar Bites
  • 4 x Porridge Sachets
  • 3 x Coffee Sachets
  • 1 x 100g gummy sweets

So there you have it! That’s how we did (almost all) the Abel Tasman track in three days. It was awesome. How ever you decide to do it it will be awesome. Its a beautiful unmissable part of New Zealand. I was blown away. If you’re interested in a packing list, comment down below and I can work on one for you :-).

Oh and FYI – The whole trip cost arounf $250 each! bargain holiday 🙂

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Peace

Josie x

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