Idyllic Abel Tasman a magnet for young and old

Golden sand and crescent-shaped coves flanked by granite are to be found in the country's smallest national park, writes COLIN MOORE

When they cut blocks of granite from Tonga Bay on the Abel Tasman coast to build Nelson Cathedral they left the altar on the beach. Grains of sand like no other lie along the bay and others of the Abel Tasman National Park.

Quartz and marble eroded to a glistening honey-coloured sugar that sparkles in the sunlight, a soft, beguiling border between the green hills of regenerating native bush and a turquoise sea of clearest water.

Other countries have beaches with white sands of talcum powder softness or the sugar of crushed coral but the sandy coves of Abel Tasman have a colour and texture that each year attracts the footprints of thousands of worshippers from around the world.

The smallest of New Zealand's national parks, 22,139ha tucked into the north-west tip of the South Island, Abel Tasman has become a New Zealand icon, its image as instantly recognisable as Mt Taranaki or the All Black uniform.

Its size is its first distinction. It has an intimacy that is reassuring, a promise of safety and an experience in the outdoors that is achievable, a challenge to the senses rather than the body.

Its physical features are enigmatic. There is that golden sand and crescent-shaped coves flanked by granite sculptures carved by nature. In places it evokes an image of the tropics and coral atolls except that fur seals laze on the rocky foreshore.

And, perhaps most important for the visitor, although most probably take it for granted, is that this national park, opened in 1942 after years of logging and slash and burn farming had denuded the hills, still contains remnants of private land and squatters' cottages that may remain for the owner's lifetime.

That makes the park accessible to the old and young alike, to the fit and the almost infirm because in the heart of the park there are luxury lodges where you can tuck into a gourmet meal and wallow in a comfy bed.

It means that the 38km coastal track from Marahau to Totaranui and a further 13km to Wainui Inlet, already the gentlest of the Department of Conservation's Great Walks, can be broken into easy chunks over a few days or even experienced as a day trip with any of a number of combinations of simple sightseeing by water taxi or perhaps a few hours of sea kayaking near the Tonga Island seal colony or a stroll along the coastal track - running shoes will do just fine - before being plucked from an idyllic cove by ferry.

William Hadfield was 19 when in 1863 he landed at Awaroa to farm a small block. It was little more than subsistence farming, a hard life in an isolated paradise.



Now, there is an airstrip at Awaroa Bay, a lodge where you can fly in from Nelson for lunch, and ferry and water taxis call daily. And there is Homestead Lodge, a replica of Meadowbank, the two-storey family home built by William Hadfield.

His great-granddaughter Lyn Wilson and her family built it on the same site. The Wilson family farm tourists. Very successfully. Their company, Abel Tasman Experiences, won a New Zealand Tourism Award last year for its guided walking and sea kayak trips in what company general manager, Darryl Wilson, calls a living park.

It is an apt description. This is a place where people and nature embrace.

We climb into stable double sea kayaks at Kaiteriteri Beach, just outside the national park boundary. There are two American honeymoon couples, a Danish couple, and our guide Darryl. He spent his youth in Glenfield where his most significant accomplishment was to sit next to Rachel Hunter in science class and spike her book with his compass when she annoyed him. Then he discovered the outdoors and now he wouldn't be anywhere else. Even Ms Hunter can't buy the paradise he works in.

We paddle towards Marahau where the walkers in our party have been driven to the start of the coastal track. There are Department of Conservation campsites all along the track but we will meet the walkers at Torrent Bay where Abel Tasman Experiences has another lodge.

There are two types of sea kayakers; those who travel in a straight line taking the shortest route possible and those who believe that the real joy in paddling a kayak is to be able to explore every nook and cranny.

Our guide is of the latter variety and takes us close to features like Split Apple Rock to offer his version of a Maori legend as to why this huge granite boulder, surrounded by water, is neatly cleaved down the middle.

We stop for lunch at Stream Cove on Adele Island, named by French Explorer Dumont d'Urville after his wife. We have the sandy cove all to ourselves.

Inside Adele Island is the Astrolabe Roadstead, a stretch of clear water named after d'Urville's ship where there are a string of sandy bays and campsites accessed from the coastal track.

Torrent Bay has water access only and a clutch of holiday homes on a patch of private land. The lodge is at the water's edge. You can fish or swim or just laze around with a cold beer.

Next day the Danesswap their paddles for hiking boots and as the wind picks up it is probably as well. By lunchtime the weather has turned to rain but the ever-resourceful Darryl plans our lunch break under the shelter of the Bark Bay hut porch.

Around the next point is the Tonga Island marine reserve. The taking or any marine life is forbidden but Darryl says that it will take decades before the barren granite sea floor is able to recover from the destruction caused by years of mindless pair trawling.

A tang of stale fish and urine in the wind is the first sign that the seal colony at Tonga Island is faring better. The seals have pups and lie well back in the rocks but one rolls on its back among our kayaks as though it is sick and cannot swim properly. It's cleaning itself, says Darryl, and as we watch it finally swims away just like a seal should.

At Onetahuti Beach we stash the kayaks above highwater where they will be collected by a water taxi or a group travelling in the other direction, and don our shoes for a 40-minute walk over Tonga Saddle to Awaroa and the Homestead Lodge.

There are trees in the grounds grown by the first Hadfield's whose many photographs and memorabilia line the walls of the modern homestead replica.

I wash the salt away, then dine on a gourmet spread and sip chilled Marlborough and Nelson wines with upwardly mobile and generously paid young Americans who just can't understand why anyone should feel miserable about this country and its economy.

On day three we take a dinghy across the flooded Awaroa Inlet - you can walk at low tide - and follow the coast track to Totaranui where there is a road end and a DoC information centre.

The trail traverses headlands where southern rata are in blazing glory, and those magical Abel Tasman beaches.

I had foolishly left the experience of them on my "one of these days" list for far too long.

*Colin Moore felt the sands of Abel Tasman National Park under his feet with the help of Abel Tasman Experiences, Latitude Nelson and Origin Pacific Airline.