November in the National Park

I've written about the Abel Tasman National Park before, Here, and Here. We've been many times before, but this was the first time in the Spring. The weather was varied, with a couple of stormy days, but it was fine enough to walk on 5 of the 7 days we were there.

In the old days we took tents. Now we’re a few decades on and the attractions of a solid roof, a comfy bed, a fridge and a bathroom are too hard to resist. We towed our caravan over the single lane gravel road and parked up beside my sister and her husband.

After years of absence, the Weka have made a welcome return, due to an intensive pest control program.

The archetypical view of the Abel Tasman is of bush clad headlands and golden sand beaches, and there were certainly plenty of those sorts of things on view.

But the other feature of the park is the track, 65km or so of fairly easy walking of which we tramped about a third, this time around.

It's hard to meditate in a caravan. Sitting there, looking all pious and everything and blocking off access to the toilet and the coffee making facilities just didn't seem fair. So at sunrise every day I went for a walk, trying to be as present as I could to the cool morning around me. I deliberately left my camera behind every day except one.

I would walk to the end of the beach, perhaps a kilometer and a half away, turn in the strong straight light of the golden hour, and see one set of footprints: mine.

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