NZ > Abel Tasman Track

[El Gordo]

We planned to do the whole track, from Marahau to Wainui Bay, in a leisurely five days. At that rate, the usual campsites are at Anchorage, Bark Bay, Awaroa, and Whariwharangi Bay, but there are lots of other campsites along the track. Many backpackers hike it in three days; Andrew Skurka could do it in one day. But, hey, we were on vacation!

This was our site at Anchorage:

Anchorage1.jpg

Anchorage2.jpg

Anchorage3.jpg

Here we are at Bark Bay.

Bark Bay.jpg

This hang was a pretty long span. Starting out, I only had satellite photos to guide me, so I took an extra pair of tree huggers to link in if needed. When hanging with my wife (aka Hangar Queen), I use a long ridge line, since we are always trying to find two trees for the head end. I took an extra line as well, which turned out to be a good thing. The Dutch Wasp makes it easy to add in more ridge line. We never had to go to ground during our NZ trip, but there were lots of sites where the spans were too long, too short, or the brush between ideally spaced trees was too heavy.

No hammock in this one; I just like the picture of the bay at sunrise.

Bark Bay sunrise.jpg

The Department of Conservation park rangers post weather reports at each site (or at least the major ones). We were told to expect a big storm, so we hurried to Awaroa to get set up early. There might be more than one pair of trees to hang from at Awaroa, but I could not find them. Fortunately, there was no competition for this spot; spotting hammock backpackers in NZ is as hard as spotting a Kewi!

Awaroa1.jpg

As it happened, the storm did not arrive until well after dark. We should have pushed on to the Totaranui campsite, which was about two and a half hours away, but we were concerned that the storm could start as we were crossing the tidal estuary (and, I was tired ). This is the one point on the Abel Tasman that you have to time correctly, as the estuary can only be crossed at low tide.

The locals might say this to all the tourists, but we were told that the storm was an exceptionally bad one. We had no problems overnight, but, because of the rain, the water remained hip high the next day, even at low tide. In addition, we would have been crossing into a fierce head wind. Some brave souls linked arms and started across; we bailed out to the Peppers Awaroa Lodge, a wonderful dinner, and a water taxi ride back to Nelson the next day.

[TFC Rick]

That's high on my list! Thank you for sharing.

[Firesong]

I loved doing this hike. I remember coming across the bay in the morning... Late lol. My bud and I had our packs on our heads by the time we made it across. Great memories!!

[El Gordo]

It's a superb hike - but my single best memory will probably be of the first shower I got to take at the lodge!

[Baka Dasai]

It looks like hammocks are not permitted on the Abel Tasman Track.

This link:
https://www.doc.govt.nz/parks-and-re.../?tab-id=50571

Contains this text:

"Camping: The use of hammocks, including "tree hugger" hammocks, is not permitted in campsites on the Abel Tasman Coast Track. Not all campsites have convenient trees to use as the campsites have been designed for placing tents, not hammocks."

It's a slightly weird statement as first it says hammocks are NOT PERMITTED, but then talks in terms of hammocks being difficult/inconvenient rather than simply verboten.

Does anybody have recent into about this issue?

[jaroporter]

i'm not sure this tells you anything you don't already get, but wild camping is not permitted on the track, you have to use provided campsites. so if the campsites have only been designed / provided for tents then using a hammock outside of that would by default not be permitted. the latter part might just be to back up and explain the blanket ban?