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| The Best Taxi In The World |
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| The Split Apple |
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| Sand Between Your Toes |
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| Torrent Bay |
'Tomorrow we're going to spend the day on a tramp' announced Clare, apropos of nothing, whilst we were finishing the remains of dinner from the sauce pan.
I could barely contain my excitement.
After so much anticipation; finally, I had the opportunity to launch the prototype of my new adventure sport and fulfill a life long dream; the chance for us to spend the day together, clinging to a malodorous and heavily inebriated Scotsman and gallop him bare back across the empty tundra.
'Perhaps another day' said Clare gently, as my hopes deflated. 'We're going for a jolly nice walk' she added, in a tone that suggested that this was some kind of compensation. My forehead creased into a frown of disappointment.
'Kiwis don't walk anywhere' she added, slightly too defensively.
'They tramp!' she exclaimed.
The next morning we headed for Abel Tasman.
Tasman National Park as it is properly known, is 22,500 hectares of undisturbed bush and coast line. It was established in 1942 and is renowned for its golden beaches, sculptured granite cliffs, coastal path and mild micro climate. A few people live there in houses that pre dated the park but even beyond its boundaries only tourism and farming support the local towns of Motueka, Takaka and Kaiteriteri.
We caught the best taxi in the world - an Abel Tasman Aqua-Taxi; an aluminium hulled power boat, that surged through the aqua-marine water, leaving a trail of foam in its wake. There was no chippy taxi driver keen to tell you about his sciatica; no plastic screen to protect the driver from the random drunken violence meted out to his urban cousins; no sign advertising a fouling charge. The buck and bounce as we leapt from waves and crashed through the swell, rendered it all redundant.
Round the 'Split Apple' rock we went, created from a giant ball of magma that was pushed to the surface a 100 million years ago before splitting in half as it emerged into the chilly seas above. After 40 minutes we were dropped at Bark Bay, 25km walk from our starting point where the Hippy Camper waited patiently for our return.
We walked for 7 hours past great bays and beaches, torquoise inlets, mud flats, cockle beds and every variety of estuary bird. We watched the tide at D'Urbville Point where the difference in sea levels is visible and surges of 10 knots and more are common. We waited for the 5m tide to recede so that we could cross the perils of Torrent Bay and played hide and seek with the sand crabs that populate the beaches in their billions.
Arriving home, tired and exhilarated, we ate fish and chips on a wall in Motueka before returning to Mckee Reserve at Ruby Bay for bed.
Who needs adventure sports when you have a tramp to entertain you.
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