Marahau is a very small town at the North Eastern edge of Abel Tasman national park. The park itself is in the far North of the Southern island. We booked two nights at a beautiful, self-contained “chalet” of cypress wood (kind of like a Lindal cedar cabin back home) sitting up on a hill about 400 meters from the entrance to the park. Both our living area and bedroom had great views overlooking farmland and the bay.
We checked in, drove back to Motueka to get groceries (there is no market in Marahau), and bought fresh monkfish, kumara, fruit, wine, fresh tomatoes, NZ feta cheese, ground coffee for the French press in the chalet (it’s called “plunger grind over here), muesli, hokey-pokey ice cream (a NZ standard consisting of vanilla ice cream with toffee pieces) and such. I crumbed and fried the fish and boiled the kumara (a bit too much) and we made a huge meal.
We then drove down the hill to the park entrance and walked onto the Abel Tasman trail.
The tide was out and the bay had long, rough sandy, rocky and muddy flats going out a substantial distance to the water. The trail itself is cut into the hillside, and the vegetation is so dense we could only occasionally see the water except at the lookouts and beach stops.
We went out on one beach that had a shapely granite tower with a small tree at the top. We took lots of pictures. We are told that the granite here is soft; “partly baked” was the way one person described it. That’s why it weathers into such interesting shapes.
By the time we turned around the sun was setting and we could see beautiful colors above the trees. Miriam rounded a corner and found two large quail. The female puffed up and hunkered down in the trail dust, then got up and followed the male. The walked about 20 feet ahead of us, staying on the trail, just like they were touring the park, walking along the trail in front of us.
We got home after sunset, had a glass of wine and turned in.
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