Navigation error leads to 35km death march in Abel Tasman

Having spent a couple of nights in Nelson, we used it as a springboard for a day trip to Abel Tasman. Abel Tasman…Abel Tasman...even the name has a slightly sinister ring to it, like a curse, or the unutterable name of a murderous pirate or evil shaman of olde.

In reality, Abel Tasman is a national park that is famed for its 51km coastal track, which skirts along fabulous unspoilt beaches and sandy coves. Abel Tasman has no road access, so visitors must either hike the coastal track or use the sea taxi service to get further in to the park.

Our plan for the day was to take the sea taxi 30kms along the coast and get dropped off at Tonga beach. We’d then backtrack, walking 16km along the coastal track to Anchorage beach, where we’d get the 5pm sea taxi back to the park entrance.

On the coach from Nelson, the bus driver had warned that parts of the track were tidal. This point was completely lost on us, as we are land lubbers and hell, we had 5 hours to walk a paltry 16kms, right?!?

We had an enjoyable stroll, reaching the estuary before Anchorage with a good hour to spare. However, one barrier lay between us and the last 1.5 km  to the pick up point. The tide had come up, meaning that we would have to wade across 100 odd meters of sea water to get to the other side. A quick look at the map (which later turned out not to be to scale) revealed that a soaking could be avoided by taking the non-tidal route around the banks of the estuary.

The sign for Anchorage indicated that the path would only take 30mins and so we cracked on. But as we progressed, we seemed to be walking further and further away from where we needed to be. The path went ever more inland with no sign of a bridge to the other side.Time was ticking down and we found ourselves anxious and walking ever faster until we were both flushed and dripping with sweat. Then, without warning the next sign for Anchorage jumped up to a 1 hr 30 mins walk time! Oh no!!! It dawned on us that the previous 30 min sign must have been for the tidal crossing and that we were now committed a much longer route which meant that we had no chance of making 5pm for the last sea taxi of the day!!!

When we eventually reached Anchorage beach, it was 5.30pm and the last boat had well and truly gone. I knew that this was not a good thing…there were no roads in to the park and the place was virtually deserted now. There was a good chance that we were stranded for the night. We had a frantic 30 minutes running up and down the length of the beach looking for help. Finding a ranger’s lodge gave us a brief moment of hope, but only confirmed that there would be no more sea taxi’s. We did find boat, but the skipper wasn’t up for taking a fare, though he did seem to take great pleasure in pointing out that it was a four hour walk and we’d finish in darkness.

So it boiled down to two options, an overnight stay in a beach hut or soldiering on and walking the remaining 13km out of the park, with no mobile reception and no guaranteed means of finding a ride back to Nelson. Staying overnight was not an option as we had a coach to catch at 8am the next day from Nelson. We resigned ourselves to walking, hopefully beating the 9pm sunset in the process. Si Phong had accepted her fate by now and had gone from being slightly tearful to silently determined…good girl.

So we trudged on, fuelled by our solitary remaining packet of chocolate digestives. We were making good progress under the still sweltering afternoon sun. About 5kms in, we began to hear strange noises from the jungle. “Its nothing, just bird calls”, I assured Si Phong. But the calls got louder and more regular until a human voice could be distinctly heard. Suddenly, a tall, muscular man emerged from the jungle behind us, he was running bare foot and his long, sun bleached hair rustled in the air. He looked magnificent.

TARZAN!!! YES!!! IT WAS TARZAN!!!

Not quite knowing what to make of it, I asked “Hello? Can I help you?”. Which was a silly thing to say, as it turned out that he wasn’t, in fact, Tarzan and had been summoned from quite some distance away to help us. We waited hopefully to see what assistance was on offer as he radio’d back to base. As far as Si Phong was concerned, she was now deeply embroiled in the Worse Crisis Ever and was fully expecting to be air lifted out of the park. Or at the very least, carried out by Tarzan. Unfortunately, this is New Zealand and the locals are a built bit tougher than that. Tarzan gave us a quick look over and politely suggested that we’d be good to finish the walk out of the park. I blame Si Phong and her sturdy looking legs for his assessment.

So, assured of our ability to finish, Tarzan disappeared just as rapidly as he’d appeared, leaving us to complete our death march . We thankfully got out at 8.30, just as dusk settled in. At this point, our escape from Abel Tasman was not yet in the bag, as we were still an hours drive from Nelson and a brief chat with the park ranger suggested that we’d be unlikely to find any transportation until the next day.

At this point, we were willing to pay any sum to get us back to a hot shower and our nice warm bed at our room in Nelson. We found a nearby cafe where the staff were great, and helped us to book a private minibus. The £100 fare hurt me far more than the 35kms of walking. How come all of my mistakes on holiday have been expensive ones?!?

While we waited, it seemed that the locals were taking an interest in our long march...the local crazy, a scruffy looking man with wild grey hair, undeterminable foreign accent and BO that could kill a possum from 50 yards, took great pleasure in castigating us loudly to the rest of the bar for our foolishness. As he blabbered on it became clear that he had an axe to grind with all the evil day trippers who were nowadays descending upon Abel Tasman by sea taxi.

It had been quite a taxing afternoon, but I restrained myself from chinning the crazy guy. It was a wise move, as he turned out to be the owner of the Cafe! Once he’d stopped foaming at the mouth, we were able to strike up some civilised conversation and his reasons became a little more clear. He was Czech, a traveller in a previous life, who’d settled in Abel Tasman over 20 years ago to start his Cafe. His beef was that back in the old days, backpackers would come from all around and spend several nights walking, camping and enjoying Abel Tasman. The advent of the boat tours had brought about a change, people were no longer willing to take their time getting in to Abel Tasman via the walking tracks, instead dropping in and out by in a single day via the boats.

Anyways, after the local Police popped in to check up on us (very embarrassing) the taxi arrived and we were finally on our way home.

In hindsight, things could have been much worse. Truth be told, we’re not really beach people and there’s something evil about these isolated beachy coves that drives people to madness and unspeakable acts of savagery…just read Lord of the Flies or The Beach if you don’t believe me!!! So we can consider ourselves lucky that the madness did not take us, though Si Phong probably did consider bashing my brains out with a rock when we first realised that we were going to miss the boat.

So what have I learnt from this experience? It’d be all to easy to blame it on my wanton disregard of tidal warnings or my route planning skills. But no, the real culprit is something much bigger. The fact is, we would NEVER have been stranded if this had happened in China. You can be your bottom dollar that we would have found an enterprising fisherman willing to moonlight as a boat taxi if the price was right. No, the real blame must lie with New Zealand and its people. Yes!!! Here is a country where people have gotten affluent that they actually believe they have the right stop working at 5.00pm and worse still, cannot be bribed in to action by our weakened British Pound. DISGRACEFUL!