The Abel Tasman Great Walk

Sunday 18th December 2005. A day late we arrived in Marahau to tramp the Abel Tasman Coastal Route. I’ve got a bad cold so we’re skipping the inland route and taking a boat to start the walk at Totaranui and walk back to Marahau.
The Abel Tasman National Park was created in 1942 due to concerns about the possibility of large scale logging along its beautiful coast. Maori lived along the coast for at least 500 years before the arrival of Europeans, the first of whom, Abel Tasman visited the area in 1642. Permanent European settlement did not begin until 1855. These settlers logged the forest, quarried the granite and burned the hillsides for pasture.
The bedrock of the area is granite, which gives the beaches their golden colour. There is rich forest with tree ferns, kiekie, supplejack, black beech, kanuka and manuka.