We got up this morning and packed our picnic lunch with plenty of snacks for our planned 12km walk. I had booked to catch a Water Taxi at 9am from Marahau.

The guy skippering the 20 seater boat was nice, and took us to look at “split apple rock” and the see the fur seals sunbaking on an island. Colin and Emily were at the front of the boat and quite protected, but Liam and I were almost frozen at the back in the cold wind. After a little sightseeing, it was time to head up to Bark Bay to start our walk. The plan was for us to walk south from Bark Bay to Anchorage Bay for a 4pm pick up.

Abel Tasman National Park runs along the coastline, and has beautiful sandy crescent shaped bays or ragged rocky cliffs. We walked from Bark Bay for about 2 ½ hours to Torrent Bay. The pathway taking us in and out of the coastal gorges and up and down the hills. The pathway was good, and quite busy with people. Lots of lovely scenery and an interesting mix of forest/bushland to walk through. Lots of little wooden and steel bridges and one larger suspension bridge. Frequent views out through the trees of the azure water and crisp white bays.  

At Torrent Bay, we stopped for our picnic lunch. A much needed refuel after the 8km we had already walked. There is a low tide option to get from Torrent Bay to Anchorage Bay – across the estuary which is completely dry for about 1 ½ hours either side of low tide. By the time we were there though it was 3 hours after low ride and quite a lot of water was flowing through. Some walkers were still taking this way, but had to wade in up to their waists. I wanted to take the high tide route anyway, as there was a pool called Cleopatra’s pool just off this main track.

The high tide route was the more scenic of the options, but longer too. This second half of our trip didn’t go quite so high but did involve lots of walking in and out along the edge of where the rivers ran. About half way along, we took the short detour to Cleopatra’s pool and all hopped in to the icy water. Colin and I hopped out again almost as quickly – it felt much colder than the measured 13 degrees Celsius. The kids had fun through, Liam once again frolicking to his heart’s content. There was even a natural water slide for them to try out.

We were all pretty tired by this time, so it was lucky we only had another 3 km (1 hour) to walk to get back to our pick up point. Liam decided to leave his shoes off and delighted in being a hobbit, walking barefoot off on his adventure. Thankfully, there were no stubbed toes or cut feet. We arrived in nice time at Anchorage Bay to hop back on our water taxi and head back to Marahau, then by car to Motueka and back to our accommodation for dinner and bed. All ate very well after our huge walk (Colin’s GPS clocked us doing 14km) and we will all presumably sleep equally well!