Abel Tasman was a Dutch seafarer and merchant from near Groningen who is best known as the first European explorer to reach the islands of Van Diemen’s Land (now Tasmania) and New Zealand. He also was the first to sight the Fiji islands. When he arrived in New Zealand he anchored in Golden Bay at the southern end of what is now the national park.
The park itself was created in 1942 to mark the 300th anniversary of Abel Tasman’s visit. This classification as a national park came about largely through the efforts of an ornithologist called Pérrine Moncrieff. She then served on the board of the park from 1943 to 1974. it is one of the smallest of New Zealand’s national parks at 237 square kilometres, but has a very beautiful coastline and it was this we visited.
There is little road access into the park, so nearly all visits are by boat. The boats start at Kaiterteri and cruise north up the coast dropping people at various points, depending how far they want to walk. They then pick people up later on their way back south.
We chose to be dropped at Tonga beach – an old granite quarry and we walked (or tramped in New Zealand terminology) down the coastal Abel Tasman track for about 3-4 miles to Barks Bay. There is a low tide route across the beach at Barks Bay, but it was high tide when we arrived, so we had lunch down near the beach.
We then took the inland high tide track across a swing bridge past the Barks Bay waterfall to Medlands Beach where we waited about half an hour for the boat pick up. On Medlands Beach we had fun watching the oystercatchers foraging for scraps.
A visit to a small family-run winery on the way home finished things off nicely. Interesting, as well as producing Sauvignon Blanc and Chardonnay (very common in the area) they also produced a Pinot Noir as well as growing hops and olives!