Able Tasman in November

the tracks a footpath. book early the huts fill up over summer

I live near the northern end of the track in Golden Bay. I once met a woman pushing a baby in a stroller, it really is a doddle! If you get into trouble you can stop at a lodge for a drink or use one of the public phones to call for help, or flag down a water taxi which will be buzzing past every few minutes. At lunch time you might have to fight to find a place on a beach to sit down as the best beaches will have wall to wall kayaks pulled up on it! I kid you not - I used to own Golden Bay Kayaks and that, unfortunately, is the reality of Abel Tasman in summer. At least now with the camping booking system you will not have 26 tents on a 6 tent camp site, which some of my customers once had!!!! The harbour master once told me he had counted nearly two hundred power boats near one of the 3 water ski lanes in the park at one time! (admittedly in January.) BUT - it is beautiful and worth doing once - not in January/February, if you are not a full-on tramper, and don't mind meeting zillions of other people except at the northern/Golden Bay end which hardly gets used, in comparison.

PS Sorry if I was a bit sarcastic/negative in the above reply. I got somewhat disillusioned owning the kayak company and got out to save my sanity! The park really is stunningly beautiful in good weather. Every beach is a gem. North of Totaranui you can do a two day circuit - maybe get a water taxi up to Onetahuti or Totaranui and do that circuit and either get a water taxi back or walk back, depends how fast you go. The track is so easy that you can do vast distances in a day, although you have to work in with the tides at a couple of places, Awaroa Inlet being the major one. In my opinion the inland track is a bit of a waste of time unless you enjoy endless pounding through bush (and mud in my case, after heavy rain) with no views. Plenty of backpacker hostels in Nelson and Motueka, and Marahau. They all offer transport to the park and back.

i counted 80 kayaks on one beach alone, a small beach had 20 on it its not a get away from it all place in summer.... kayaking is better than the tramping, get to see more of the coastline. the bush is almost exclusively immature regrowth so its not classic nz bush .. i read one article that talked about "towering Kauri trees" interesting since kauri don't grow that far south... i'm waiting for the day doc widen the track and let hoards of mountain bikers on it so they can clip the ticket even more , which seems to be the way DOC are going.... so yeah joint the 200,000 people a year who go through one of our smallest national parks to get away from it all..

abel tasman is a classic example of how not to manage a park, there used to only be one tourist operator company allowed in the park, doc decided there should be competition and it became a free for all, and there are now too many companies competing for business cutting their own throats trying to stay in business... the local maoris have been given a lionshare of the business since they are loaded from treaty settlements, they are called "the empire" and everyone else gets the scraps

I took my 9 y.o. nephews on it one August 30 years ago. We saw one other party - a couple of lads on the dole. We were the only ones camping at Totaranui. The boys went for a swim. Frank and I took the boat in to Totaranui to do the inland pack track a couple of years ago. We enjoyed that track. One feature is the sub-alpine vegetation in one section of it. When we walked back along the great walk, the smell of urine had us walking above the low-tide mark on the beach. Apparently there are 65 toilets on the great walk.

I think if I ever went back there I'd be more keen to check out the inland route. @deepriver might be correct about it being boring as I haven't seen it, but my impression of the coastal route in May was little more than up-down-beach-up-down-beach-up-down-beach etc. Not a lot of variation. My favourite part was definitely towards the northern end, beyond where the kayaks were able to go. It felt more remote, and Whariwharangi Hut was probably one of the more interesting (historically and otherwise) that NZ has to offer. It depends largely on what interests you, I guess. Lots and lots of visitors seriously do enjoy the Abel-Tasman Coastal Track. It's also relatively easy and relatively safe and relatively well populated with people who could be asked for help in case of problems, if you're new to the whole thing.

I did the Coast track with my sister and some friends when we were 18-19, it was one of our first tramps as neither of our parents tramp. I think it is really beautiful. November is probably a good time to go, it won't be quite so busy as Dec-Feb (but still don't expect it to be quiet). You can easily do Marahau to Totaranui in two nights although if you have the chance it is highly recommended to continue further north (we didn't). We did return in winter a few years later to do the Inland track. It was snowy and sunny and some areas such as Moa Park were pretty cool. However most of the track is in bush and the only big views along the way are at a couple of lookouts. Stayed at Anchorage Hut the last night and we were the only ones there. This year we spent four days kayaking in the Abel Tasman in late February; camping and swimming every day, there were about 3 or 4 tents at Mosquito Bay campsite (sites available for 20) and we managed to pick the period of really fine settled weather (actually I think they called it a drought). It was an awesome relaxing holiday :-) I agree the park is too crowded but despite that have always enjoyed trips there

the northern end of the inland track down to the totoranui rd is interesting, out in the open with great views of golden bay and kahurangi park... also the southern end, good view at castle rocks but the rest of it is a monotonous bush walk