Abel Tasman: Day 2
Our first morning in Abel Tasman is cold and misty. We wake and head to the lodge to get a cooked breakfast. It’s pretty generous, but still overpriced. We cheekily smuggle out a pair of muffins to cover us for lunch: we feel as though we’ve paid for it.
At reception we inform the staff that our electric blanket is problematic too, so they promise to fix it. We tell them of our plans to walk to Mutton Cove and back, they suggest that the tides won’t let us do that: we need to catch a water taxi up to Mutton Cove and then walk back, by which time the tides on the Awaroa inlet will allow us to cross it.
The staff on the desk are able to organise for us to catch a water taxi in the next quarter of an hour, so we accept.
On the water taxi, an older woman argues with the skipper. She has been told by someone at the lodge that she can catch a 4:00 boat back from Bark Bay, the skipper tells her the 4:00 boat is no longer running. It’s an ugly situation, with the skipper telling the woman that she has plenty of time to catch the 2:30 boat, that his grandparents did the walk in sufficient time, but she is insulted and angry, and decides to go back to the lodge to confront the management. So we turn back after ten minutes and drop her off.
After setting out again we get to Mutton Cove, which is beautiful little bay about four hours north of Awaroa. We are dropped off with an American girl who is travelling alone: she sets out ahead of us while we are busy drying our feet from the landing. We walk fifteen minutes northwards through dappled forest, passing a Department of Conservation worker who is clearing a path with a pickaxe. We emerge at Separation Point, which is reached by a narrow path carved high up into the side of a bluff, with a steep climb down to a lighthouse. As we walk the path we hear the sounds of cavorting seals below us. In the distance we can see Farewell Spit.
We head back south, following the bush through the forest and out along the beaches. The track drops out of the bush at the top end of each beach, and we walk along the beach and rejoin the track at the bottom end. We stop in Anapai Bay to eat our muffins, along with a couple of easter eggs and a few potato chips. A lone gull eyes us gamely while sandflies gorge themselves on us.
We head back through the bush, peeking out through the trees into each departed bay, and descend into Totaranui, where the tide is almost completely out, but not wholly, and I have to carry L across the mud. At the Totaranui motor camp we fill our water bottle. Following our rule of looking for the track at the bottom of the beach, we lose it, and at L’s behest we climb around the rocks from Totaranui into Goat Bay: I’m a little nervous about being caught out by the tide but at this point it’s still going out so we have time on our side. We head back into bush to get to Waiharakeke Bay, where the American girl, who we thought was in front of us, appears behind us. A short walk through the bush and we get to the Awaroa Inlet, which is empty but requires us to take shoes off three times before we cross completely. The water forces us to take shoes off, the vast swathes of empty shells force us to put our shoes back on. The empty estuary is full of variable and pied oystercatchers, spearing their beaks into the wet mud in search of sustenance. L tires of taking off her shoes so I carry her over the last few muddy rivulets.
At the lodge we try to organise kayaking, but the management tell us that it’s ‘uneconomical’, so we go to our room dejected and trying to come up with alternative plan for the next day. I head into the lodge early for a couple of beers by the fire. L joins me and we have dinner: her the salmon, me the steak. After dinner L has a chocolate torte by the fire while I nurse a whiskey that has been served on the rocks, in spite of my requesting it neat. An older woman asks us if we’d like to go kayaking: she has been trying to organise it too but has also hit a wall with the management. She conspires with us to leave a note at reception.