Abel Tasman Walk - Day 2

The next day we stayed at the lodge, and could do a variety of activities including walks to the tops of local peaks. In the morning, a walk to the end of the estuary was scheduled, and I started out on it. This area has tidal variations of up to five metres (one of the largest in New Zealand) and the estuary was now almost entirely sand. 

I found that I hate walking on sand, and more importantly, I was soon the very last person on walking, and the others were rapidly disappearing into the distance. Maybe it was my sandals, which had a layer of pebbles below my feet. Anyway, I dropped out rapidly, and returned to the lodge to relax.

In the afternoon I chose to walk to the top of one peak. This was a great walk. We went a short distance along the other side of the estuary (I chose to go barefoot), then into the forest,

and up the mountain. At first the path through the forest was very narrow, and it felt like we were walking through forest rather than along a path, 

but soon we joined the main trail again and went up to the lookout and over the mountain,

back to the lodge. As you can see, the estuary was rapidly refilling as the tide came in while we were walking.