About halfway through the trip we took the ferry from Wellington (the North Island) down to Picton (the South Island) and drove from there to our hotel, The Waters, in Tasman. The Waters served as home base for our explorations of the Abel Tasman National Park.

The Kiwi fellow seated in this photo (below) taking in the tranquil vista joking said we would needed to reach out to his solicitor to sort out arrangements for using his person in my photo.

Tasman
The Waters sit on a small spit of land with Tasman Bay on one side and Moutere Inlet on the other. It’s a working farm, a vineyard. Below is the view of the vineyard from the bedroom balcony.

The view of Tasman Bay from the front of our suite…

The cliffs at the edge of the bay as seen from the water’s edge at low tide…

Abel Tasman National Park (partial panos below) is all but completely uninhabited. When the park was formed, the handful of tiny homes (many are simple, rough-hewn shacks) that remain (no utilities are present) in this vast area of dense rainforest, were granted the right to remain until the owners’ death. This is undisturbed wilderness.



Other links in this series:
- NZ Partial Panos (Part 1: Waiheke Island)
- NZ Partial Panos (Part 2: Abel Tasman Reserve & The Waters) [this post]
- NZ Partial Panos (Part 3: Queenstown & The Matakauri Lodge)