Abel Tasman Coastal Track - The Best Bit of New Zealand

“Abel Tasman Coastal Track – the best bit of New Zealand”
By Mike Crudge

Mike Crudge grew up in Motueka and goes back a few times every year to visit his parents.  Every summer for the last eleven years he has walked the Abel Tasman Coastal Track and taken more than 60 of his friends through it with him, this summer he has 12 people walking it with him…  He loves the place, and describes himself as a bit of a fanatic, he says walking the track each summer has become a tradition, “it’s four days of the year where I leave my laptop and cell phone behind and escape the national grid… I always tent it, there’s some great camping sites in the park, it’s like being on a tropical island.”

“I enjoy photography too, so this book comes out of the combination of two things I really like doing.”  The book is 50 pages of colour photographs set out as a geographic journey through the track in pictures, showing lots of the best bits of the track.  It’s small, soft-covered and inexpensive with the tourist market in mind, “I’ve travelled a bit and a good book on a place you really like in a format that’s easy to put in your pack and bring back home – that’s what I had in mind for this book.”

Apart from the fact that the Abel Tasman Coastal Track is the best bit of New Zealand [according to Mike], it is also a good “first tramp” for people to do.  It’s not climbing up mountains like a lot of other NZ walks, there are a few hills to get over from one beach to another but any hilly bits take no more than about half an hour at a time.  Last year Mike walked the track with a family who had four children, the youngest was 8 – the youngest of anyone who has joined Mike on the track.  The 8 year-old coped pretty well, but mainly because his Dad carried most of his stuff!  The track can be walked in less time than Mike does it in, he walks it over 4 days (3 nights), and likes to get most of the walking done in the mornings if the tide allows that to happen, and then set up camp about lunch time, ready to spend the afternoons lounging on the beach, swimming, napping, walking or reading…

The various water taxi operators have day-trip packages, so you can get a taxi into the park in the morning, do anything from one to several hours of walking and then get picked up and taken back to your car in the afternoon.  If you don’t want to walk at all you can spend the day on one of the slower boats.

“I think this book is the first of its type: a pictorial book on a bit of New Zealand, printed in New Zealand, on paper made from sustainable forests and recycled materials.  It’s a book with a conscience!”  The book carries the Forest Stewardship Council logo, this means every step of the manufacturing process from the planting of the tree through to the printing press has been certified as not oppressing people or the environment – not many books can make this claim.

Mike’s Abel Tasman book is available from book shops and information centres in the Nelson, Motueka and Golden Bay regions with a recommended retail price of $17 (he will be working on expanding the distribution network very soon).  Some of his photographs are being displayed on stretched canvas at the Hooked on Marahau café and restaurant near the start of the track over the summer. The book has can also be purchased online: www.AbelTasmanBook.com

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