Abel Tasman Coastal Run

For all you runners out there who've been a bit bored of all our talk of bicycles lately, you'll be happy to see us back in our trail shoes for a brief interlude before we get back on our wheels and pedal away for another few hundred km's.

Abel Tasman National Park is one heck of a drop-dead gorgeous place. Add sunshine (which it gets a lot of) and you've got yourself some stunningly blue-green waters, coves and vistas over the Tasman Bay to explore either on foot or by kayak.

Having already paddled the Milford Sound and deciding that it's kinda hard work, we opted for running instead. After all, we hadn't had a chance to lace up our running shoes since the Auckland Marathon 3 weeks ago. A 40km run on the trails seemed like a good way to check to see if our legs still knew how to do that. Thankfully, they were up for the challenge and the long days we've logged on the bikes meant that 6 hours on the trails didn't phase us too much.

The trail was a treat to run on: wide, clear and winding with a few ups and downs but loads of beautiful views to make any effort well worthwhile.

We took our time, every detour we came across, and about a million photos along the way.

Logistically, this is probably one of the most accessible of NZ's Great Walks. It's a point-to-point walk which is serviced by a water taxi that stops at various bays along the way allowing you to experience however much you'd like: from a day trip to sit at one of the peaceful beaches to a multi-day through hike. The only thing to consider is the timing of the tides across a few key sections of the trail. For this reason, we were limited to run from Marahau to Awaroa Bay (which was fine with us as committing to an ultra probably wouldn't be sensible, now would it?).

An epic coastal run and an awesome finish line with our toes in the sand!