Sometimes, on some
walks, you’re glad to be getting near the end. Sure signs of this include constant
thoughts of showers, soft beds, fresh food and clean clothes. And of just not walking for a good long while.
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[Pleasant walking on the final day] |
Our final day on the
Abel Tasman Coast Track isn’t one of those days. The weather is fine, we are
feeling fit, and the walking is interesting. We have the bonus of a walking
companion in young New Zealander Brad. He is sociable, as Kiwis invariably seem
to be. Is it the result of living in an isolated place at the end of the earth?
If so it works well for Tasmanians too. We find plenty to chat about as we meander
above the nearby coast.
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[Looking towards Adele and Fisherman Islands] |
We’ve now drawn
level with Adele Island, which we’d paused alongside on our first day’s water
taxi ride. That day we’d seen sea birds galore, and were also thrilled to see
New Zealand fur seals on the shore. The island is a focus of environmental
restoration, with the biggest job being to bring back the dawn chorus. The Abel
Tasman Birdsong Trust, Project Janszoon, DoC and various private donors have
combined to trap and poison introduced predators such as rats, possums and
stoats. Adele Island has been a pilot for a larger project which has seen 70%
of the Abel Tasman National Park covered by the trapping program.
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[New Zealand fur seals on Adele Island] |
We come across one
of the newer humane traps. The traps are powered by compressed C02 gas. The possum version is activated when a
possum bites on a lure. The rat/stoat version requires the animal to move aside
a leaf to investigate a lure. Either way the animal activates a steel piston,
powered by C02
gas, which strikes the skull of the inquisitive animal and kills it instantly.
Once the animal has been struck, it drops to the ground, leaving the trap set
for the next pest.
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[A CO2-activated pest trap] |
Even though this
method of pest eradication is much less labour-intensive than the older tunnel
traps, there is still a huge commitment required to simply keep pest numbers
down. Complete control is but a dream, and the the incredibly beautiful dawn
chorus of native birds like tui, tieke, korimako, kakariki and kaka, is heard
in relatively few localities.
English botanist
Joseph Banks, while in this region aboard Captain James Cook’s Endeavour in 1770, wrote this about the
local birds.
‘This morn I was awakd by the
singing of the birds ashore from whence we are distant not a quarter of a mile,
the numbers of them were certainly very great … Their voices were certainly the
most melodious wild musick I have ever heard, almost imitating small bells but
with the most tuneable silver sound imaginable.’
Even Cook, not one
to wax lyrical, was moved to describe the korimako (bellbird) as sounding ‘like small bells exquisitely tuned’.
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[An epiphyte colonising a trackside rock wall] |
As if predatory
mammals were not enough of a threat to New Zealand’s native species, pest
plants have a significant impact here too. As we walk towards our finishing
point, we see signs of wilding pine infestations. These are any of ten
different introduced conifers that have gone wild in New Zealand. A significant
effort in this park has seen many of the infestations poisoned. For the moment
they are evidenced by ugly brown stands of dead trees on the steep green
forested slopes of the hinterland. In the longer term the dead pines will be –
and already are being – replaced by native bush, much to the advantage of the
bird species.
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[A local newspaper story on wilding pine] |
By late lunchtime
we have reeled in the small settlement of Marahau. We cross the final few
bridges across the tidal flats, and walk into the café that marks the start/end
of the track. There Brad joins us for a celebratory hot lunch and cool drink. We
raise a glass to a great walk on this Great Walk.
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