Abel Tasman - Over Hill and Dale

The Abel Tasman is not just a mountain. It covers an area of ​​225.3 km². The Abel Tasman National Park, which incidentally is the smallest national park in New Zealand. There are many small towns in the area that mainly live off tourists who book tours there. There are so many activities there, it would take weeks to do everything.

Hold on, how am I supposed to write, am I now the author of a travel guide?

No, so: Actually, we wanted to do a track (I've only known the word since I've been in New Zealand, so I explain it to you, even if it may already exist in DE, I just haven't found the word in my vocabulary yet), so a hike off the beaten path with signs on trees, etc. ... in short: we wanted to hike yesterday. It didn't work out because of bad weather (what else). So we had to postpone it and start our track today. In the end, that was probably for the best, as the weather was once again really good today. Pleasantly warm, almost all sun and hardly a cloud in the sky. So perfect conditions for an easy (I deliberately looked for an easy path because we are as sporty as Cindy from Marzahn or Chris Tall) walk that you can do along and / or on the Abel Tasman.

It took us 50 minutes from our campsite to get to our track. 20 minutes on the road, 30 minutes on the gravel road. It dragged on, I'm telling you.

When we arrived, we were relieved that our van was still intact and we didn't have whiplash. Put on hiking shoes, packed food and drinks, and off we went.

Harwoods Hole Track. 3km one way, doable for us wimps. The whole time through the forest, through mud, over rocks and then we were there. At Harwoods Hole, the deepest vertical hole in New Zealand. Very impressive. Aliens always come out there in movies or people fall in and suddenly have superpowers. In our case, nothing happened. But it wasn't a movie either.

On the way back, you could take a short detour (900m) to a lookout point from which we could see the other mountain ranges that were only separated by a valley. Breathtaking, and not just because of the height of 1100 meters above sea level. It felt as free as a bird. We sat at the slope for at least 30 minutes and just enjoyed the view. The way back was rather uninteresting. Forest, mud, and rocks, just like on the way there, which makes sense. This was definitely not our last hike...