Day 217 Monday, March 7th. Abel Tasman National Park-sore feet.

We did quite a bit of tramping today. We bought tickets on a water taxi for NZ$136 and at 9.00am joined about 10 others and climbed aboard the boat which was on a trailer and hooked on the back of a tractor. They get 12’ tides here and, since the beach slopes gently, the water mark comes and goes about ½ km between low and high tides. Right now it’s low tide and so the tractor takes us out across the beach to drop us into the South Pacific Ocean. Then we are off at a fairly fast clip for about 40 minutes or so to our drop point at Onetahuti Bay. On the way we see seal pups (about 12-18” long) frolicking in a small bay guarded by their mums. Female seals can live about 30 years but are fertile for only about the first 15 years but spend almost all of that time pregnant or giving birth between their 8 month gestation periods.
We have about 6 hrs. to our pick-up time at 4.00pm at Anchorage Bay which is at least 16km away south and over the hilly track. All of the low tide short-cuts across the various bays will be covered in the noon high tide and so we have to trek inland around them.
I’m eating raw onion as I type this while Christine cooks sausages, onion and rice (Christine tells me to call it “Sausage Mexican Risotto”). All doors and windows open as we cook with this leaky propane cylinder and I’m nursing my sore feet and a blister. We have had a fantastic day, absolutely beautiful blue skies and wonderful scenery. We hiked with Margaret and Eric a (Swiss retired couple who came to NZ 2 yrs ago and loved it and are now back for 2 months). Then we met up with a Kiwi couple, Rob and Gail, who are “Trampers”, also retired, also enthusiastic. We bought them a coffee in exchange for their invaluable insights into how to spend our limited time here. They are going to spend eleven weeks just “Tramping” around the northern part of the south island. Rob tells me that you can’t make any money in New Zealand-“It’s all about Lifestyle”. (He was an MD for a market research company).
New Zealanders call hiking “Tramping” which reminds me of the Tramps who would come knocking at my Parent’s door in England for a cup of tea and some food in exchange for an odd job or two. It was understood that not much work would get done.
We spend our 2nd night at Marahau Beach Camp.