Awaroa slice of heaven for sale

Fancy owning a property next to the land New Zealanders bought in the middle of the Abel Tasman National Park? Now is your chance.

A 1524m2 waterfront property in the Awaroa Inlet is up for sale.

Blenheim-based owner Shelley Prouting said she had owned the property since the mid 1980s and was ‘‘heartbroken’’ to be selling it, but she was working full time and was no longer able to spend the time there that she used to.

Prouting said her family regu- larly used to fly into the property in the heart of the national park from their home in the Awatere Valley, near Blenheim which took about 20 minutes.

When her kids were younger, they would sometimes drive to the Awaroa Inlet carpark with a horse float and then ride their horses across the estuary to the property.

‘‘It is just so quiet and it is safe for kids, because it is protected by the sandbar.’’

She said visitors to the property had often commented on how peaceful it was.

‘‘It is a place that you go to get away from everyone, it is just going to break my heart to sell it.’’

In 2015, a seven hectare property adjacent to Prouting’s went on the market. A few months and more than $2.2 million in donations later, the slice of beach was owned by the New Zealand public.

Christchurch men Duane Major and Adam Gard’ner were behind the crowdsourcing campaign that saw the land incorporated into the national park as part of the Department of Conservation’s estate.

Blenheim Harcourts agent Rhonda Stewart said there had been a lot of enquiries, particu- larly from overseas, about the Prouting property which was price on application. It included a furnished two-bedroom log cabin and was a 10 minute walk from the Awaroa Lodge and 31km from Takaka by road.

The property could be accessed by walking across the sand at low tide from the Awaroa Inlet carpark but at high tide, a dinghy was needed. An added bonus was access to the private airstrip with landing rights built into the title.

Stewart said the unique property was ‘‘quite remarkable’’ and was waiting for the right person to come along and snap it up.