Abel to please
An accessible kayak experience
It had been a horrible night. It was cold, the sand under my tent was packed as hard as concrete, my feeble yoga mat had provided laughable padding, the epic snorer in the next tent was so close we might have been sharing a bed and, to cap it all off, the waves were too noisy.
I’d thought they would lap soothingly on to the sand and lull me to sleep, but instead they slapped and crashed all night long.
There were also rowdy birds squawking way before dawn. I was not impressed.
Emerging from my tent, I staggered away from the little campsite down to the empty beach. There, a stream had etched a skeleton tree of fine black rivulets across the yellow sand and, beyond it, the sea was now smooth and glossy.
The low sun threw long shadows from the weather-sculpted rocks surrounding this little cove and the colours all around were richly saturated: gold, turquoise, green and blue. It was gorgeous.
Then my daughter Holly brought me freshlybrewed coffee – and all was well with the world.
We were into our second day of our little adventure: two days paddling along the coast of Abel Tasman National Park, followed by a day of tramping. The two nights were under canvas at DOC campsites, self-catered and independent.
The trip was bookended by time with Abel Tasman Kayaks, which picked us up from Nelson and drove us out to its base at Ma¯ ra¯ hau for a very thorough briefing, including instructions on what to do in every possible scenario. Most of the group were doing a guided tour but, after proving that we could handle our kayak, Holly and I set off on our own, heading across the first of many bays.
Advised, because of strong winds further out, to stop short of tackling the alarmingly-named Mad Mile that day, we pootled along towards Watering Cove.
Just two hours of easy paddling, enjoying the shags and gulls, bush and beaches, rocks and islands, had us at our destination in time for a late lunch, a nap and an exploration of the gorgeous little bay, with its elephant head rock at one end and an islet at the other.
In the interests of balancing the morning’s upper-body exercise, we set off along the nearby Abel Tasman Coast Track, on the other side of the headland.
Compared with our peaceful little cove, this long, lovely beach was full, busy with water taxis buzzing in and out, and people swimming, using the DOC huts and lazing by their tents.
Even back in the bush, at the end of the sidetrack leading to Cleopatra’s Pool, there were plenty of people braving the bracing waters and shrieking down the rocky waterslide.
We could hardly complain about the crowds since we were here for the same reasons they were, and all of them were good: a do-able track, easy water access and, above all, gorgeous scenery.
Back at Watering Cove, we ate our boil-in-thebag butter chicken and watched the colours deepen as the sun set beyond the headland. Raising our wine glasses to the challenge of tomorrow’s Mad Mile crossing, we went to bed happy.
Next morning, we were even happier. The wind had dropped completely during the night and the previous day’s choppy waters around the headland now looked like a glistening millpond.
We skimmed along, detouring to spot fur seals basking on Pinnacle Island and peeking at the Sandfly Bay lagoon.
Bark Bay, where we should have spent the night, was busy too, understandably: it was goldensand perfection.
But so too were all the other little bays we’d