Abel Tasman National Park (established in 1942) is New Zealand’s smallest national park and is located at the top of the South Island and is home to the world-famous Abel Tasman Coast track which runs for miles along the Golden and Tasman Bays.

Our first day we rented a kayak and took off at high tide paddling about 5 miles along the coast in Caribbean blue waters. The coast is lined with golden sandy beaches, sculptured granite cliffs and rocky outcrops (mainly granite but with a scattering of limestone and marble) and rich, unmodified estuaries. It was warm, sunny, and breathtakingly beautiful. Life couldn’t be better.

Next day we took a water taxi about 7 miles up the coast and walked back along the most beautiful trail that seemed cut out of the mountainside like a cement sidewalk. We would stop at the beaches along the trail to swim in the perfectly calm, cool salt water and then wash off in the fresh water streams that flowed from underground springs higher up in the mountains and made their way to the beach and into then into the ocean.

All activities revolve around the twice daily flow of the tides both high and low with high tide waters rising a phenomenal 12 feet. In response to this sea change, an ingenious system has been set up where water taxis are pulled by tractors on boat trailers to wherever the water happens to be. At high tide the boats leave and return at the docks like any normal boat would but at low tide the tractors pull the boats about a quarter mile on the open sand flats to where enough water can float the boats and allow them to take off. It is really cool.