If there was one place I was really excited to get to whilst traveling New Zealand, it was Nelson.
There were other places, sure, but Nelson held a really special place in my heart because my brother Michael and sister-in-law Lauren adore Nelson. My brother would tell me over and over again, “If you can make it to Nelson – even just you know, to stop – you should check it out. I mean, I am sure you have seen beaches like that – probably even prettier ones – but yea, we loved Nelson!”
Lauren told me, “I just remember the beaches with such golden sand!”
So I wanted to get to Nelson, spend a couple of nights there, explore the places they may have explored and feel a little piece of home with me on the road.
Nelson is a charming town that reminds of a place you would find somewhere in New England: it has one main cobblestone street lined with outdoor shops, surf shops, book stores and coffee shops running through the center of it with a modest but long beach just a few minutes drive down the road.
I had hopped off the bus with my friend Jake, and we wandered our way around Nelson at a chilled and relaxed pace and spent the first night drinking some red wine on the balcony of our hostel at Accents on the Park, which had me feeling like I was staying at the Ritz Carlton.
We woke up the next morning and hit the ground running, hiking our way up to the geographical center of New Zealand, which offered stunning vistas of the hillsides, town and infinite ocean spread out before us.
We meandered our way along a dirt road down to Founder’s Park, and for most of the 40 minute or so walk, we were two of the only people out on the path making for a peaceful and uninterrupted stroll.
Jake and I ended our first day in Nelson with a visit to the local beach that one woman described to us being kilometers of white sand.
This was not exactly a sugar-white sand beach, but it did remind me of something rugged in its own right. It was rough around the edges with all the marshes and trees making the beach seem slightly untamed and wild, but it did what all beaches do: offer a place of solitude to give you a few moments to stop, breathe and take the world in.
I felt like I could see myself going back to Nelson because even though it is a small town, it feels like New Zealand is just sitting as its doorstep.
Nelson is in the most idyllic of spots not only because it is on the coast but because it gives travelers the option to head out to explore the Nelson Lakes, which are big for trampers (re: hikers without a path) as well as providing easy access to Abel Tasman National Park.
Named after a Dutch seafarer who was the first explorer set sight on New Zealand, Abel Tasman is the smallest of New Zealand’s national parks.
Abel Tasman National Park was first established in 1942, and it offers travelers the chance to hike some of the renowned country’s great walks with its two trails: an inland track and a coastal track.
I have hiked in a lot of places around the world, but as I have said before – I am not one of those travelers you will see lugging around a tent, sleeping bag (though I will admit I do have a sleeping bag this trip) and portable kitchen tied to my backpack to camp out along mountain passes. I hike mainly for the reward as well as for the tranquility that oozes out of some of the lodges, rest houses and – in this case – camping sites that I stay at along the way.
But Abel Tasman is teeming with inlets, bays, lagoons and other non-pedestrian friendly areas to explore, and I wanted to conquer the best of both worlds. I wanted to spend some time out on the water but still get my legs working on the walking trails, so I decided to do a kayak-walking combination tour with Abel Tasman kayaks.
It was a bit of a last minute decision and opportunity to stay overnight in the park, and I decided to stay only one night for a variety of reasons:
A. I had not planned to camp so was slightly (re:incredibly) unequipped to do so.
B. I had not much time left in New Zealand and was headed to a bucketload of weather-dependent activities in Franz Josef, an area with some of the most fickle sunshine and rain in the country.
C. Activities in Abel Tasman, especially walking the coastal track, are heavily tide-dependent activities. If I somehow accidentally missed my chance to walk across beaches and passes at low tide, then I would slightly screwed.
I solved part of Problem A by purchasing a used sleeping bag for 15 dollars from my hostel in Nelson.
Though there is an option to rent sleeping bags, I knew I would need one down the line for my road trip through Western Australia and thus saw it as a small (and worthwhile) investment. I packed a clean pair of underwear and filled the rest of my daypack with food – which in the end was rendered useless – and bug spray along with my camera.
And for some reason I still can not fathom, I decided to follow the advice of a woman in the hostel back in Nelson and not take ANY warm clothes with me to spend the night in the National Park.
“It is pretty warm there, and those sleeping bags are lined with fleece. I reckon you will be all right,” she said to me.
After 27 years of living with purple-blue induced lips whenever the temperature drops below summer weather, I should have known better. But no, I thought I could handle it.
After a day of frolicking around Nelson, Jake and I hopped on an hour-long bus ride the following afternoon up to Maharau, which is considered the gateway to Abel Tasman National Park.
Though we could have easily commuted to the park from Nelson, I needed to be all smiles and sunshine (and completely on time) for when Abel Tasman Kayaks picked me up at my Maharau accommodation at 8 a.m. the following morning to start my tour.
