Abel Tasman National Park:1

The weather turned as we left the sounds, and headed northwest towards the Tasman and Golden Bays.The weather forcast was a week of solid rain and as we passed through Nelson and headed toward Takaka Hill, we found ourselves driving through the clouds and rain. We ended up on a narrow rocky road winding through pasture, and forest, toward Abel Tasman National Park.

Sheep in the mist

The road through the forest

Looking back towards our camp

We camped at the inland side of Abel Tasman National Park. We spent nearly a week here all told, enjoyed the many hikes in the area and the lambs that were grazing in our campsite. The forest here was dark and mossy, with large beech trees and ferns. The plains and outcroppings were either boulders of black marble, white granite, or the most amazingly shaped stones we'd ever seen.

DANGER! Sheep grazing in the forest

White Granite

Black Marble

Moss covered nearly everything

For our first hike we made our way into the mountains to reach Moa Park, an alpine basin in the ranges north of our campsite. Here are some of the scenes from that trip:

On the hike to Moa Park

The forest canopy

The view on the way to Moa Park

Moa Park

heading in the opposite direction from Moa Park, was a hike to the largest vertical shaft (hole) in New Zealand and lookout across the beautiful Takaka Valley.

The track's beginning through beech forest

A lake along the way

The forest as we neared the hole

The best we could do to capture the shaft, which went several hundred feet into the ground and out of sight

The lookout

These amazing, mountain shaped boulders were strewn everywhere

Gorge Creek on its way to Takaka

Proof we were there!

We'll save the next update for later, as this one turned out a lot longer than we thought! Thanks for reading and hope you're all well!