Kaiteriteri and Abel Tasman

Kaiteriteri

Kaiteriteri is lovely in March. It isn’t too cold, the sun is shining, and, more importantly, the holidays are over. This place must be rammed full of people at peak summer time. But hardly anyone was around when we visited.

Although Kaiteriteri is a destination in its own right, we chose it because it’s the easiest way to see the Abel Tasman National Park by sea. Sightseeing boats regularly run up the coast as far as Totaranui. To get there otherwise is a 60-mile trip over some twisty roads and only unpowered campsites at the end; in other words, we would have been knackered on arrival and freezing at night.

Besides the lovely golden beach, Kaiteriteri is ideal for mountain biking and not so bad for Hiking. We used the Alltrails app to wander out of town to a beautiful forest.

We might be out of touch and could later find this commonplace, but we thought the device above was simple genius. You just need to stand on it, and it washes your feet for you.

Abel Tasman

Soon after fuelling up with coffee at the Kaka Point cafe, next to the campground, we took our place onboard the Wilson’s Vista motor catamaran for our sightseeing trip along the coast.

The coast is lovely, but I couldn’t quite catch that on camera.

On the boat

According to Māori mythology, the boulder was split in half by two feuding gods fighting to possess it. They used their enormous strength to split the rock, which is how it got the name Tokangawhā – burst open rock. And it does indeed look like a split apple.

And now we are off to Pupu Springs and Pancake Rocks