The Abel Tasman Coast Track

In January 1983, Heather, eight-year-old Evan, and I walked the Abel Tasman Coast Track. It was the first long hike that the three of us did together, and – although the track wasn’t called a Great Walk at the time (the Department of Conservation, DoC, hadn’t even been established) – it also became the first of the nine New Zealand Great Walks that Heather and I have done. The Abel Tasman National Park is in the north of the South Island. Although it is the smallest of New Zealand’s 13 national parks, the Abel Tasman Coast Track has by far the largest number of Great Walks' visitors per year.