Along the way, Wade is providing some interesting history about the Dutch Explorer Abel Tasman, whom the National Park is named after (even though he never actually stepped foot on this land) and other less known explorers such as Frenchman Jules Sebastien Cesar Dumont d'Urville who dedicated six days to explore the area while his boat, the Astrolabe was anchored in the sheltered coastal waters inside Adele Island. This part of the sheltered coastline is now called Astrolabe Roadstead. Our trusty guide also gave us an insight into the maori history and clashes between various tribes as well as with unwitting European Explorers.
By now we'd paddled approximately 10km of coastline and were ready for a hearty lunch, so powered onto the shore in our kayaks at Te Pukatea Bay. Once the kayaks were unloaded, Wade cooked us a delightful lunch of steamed green lipped mussels, beef kebabs, salad, warm toasted pita bread, cookies and chocolate filled croissants! With full tummies, we took a brief walk to the viewpoint with stupendous views over Te Pukatea Bay, before paddling back into Anchorage Bay to meet up with our water taxi. Since we had enough time, we paddled into the shallow lagoon of Anchorage Bay which was extremely peaceful and calm. Our water taxi took care of returning our extra personal effects as well as the kayaks to the base while we embarked on a 30 minute walk from Anchorage Bay to Watering Cove. The walk took us through various levels of forest and scrubland with Wade explaining various medicinal properties and uses of plants by Maori. The track soon spilled us out onto the beach at Watering Cove where we had some time to explore interesting formations such as Kiwi Rock and photograph the beautiful scenery, before our water taxi returned to collect us and take us back to the base.
Once back at the base we were invited to soak in their hot tub and take a hot shower which we gratefully accepted.
Since our next stop was the West Coast of the South Island, we decided to head out of town in the general direction of the west coast and ended the day at a fantastic camp site in Motupiko along Highway number 6.
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