Pick up in Nelson by Wilson tour company, boat to Abel Tasman Park, hike to Awaroa.

David runs through the sleeping 7 a.m. town to the Nelson Cathedral at the top of Trafalger Street. The hill is Piwiki in Maori, meaning “come hither” and was the site, in 1842, where Bishop Selwyn arrived with a tent and an axe and built a “cathedral” where 200 souls crammed together to worship. (Remember the Auckland Anglican Church?) Now, the stone cathedral sits in a botanical garden with more than 40 “heritage trees:” many transplants from both coasts of America, but towering with age and grace. Someone inside the locked cathedral is playing Bach on the organ, faint but distinct on the winds beginning to gust around the stone walls.

Wilson’s bus picked us up at 10:30; we threw our black Wilsons-supplied bags in the back and motored along the coast, down route 60, past apple orchards (Eves mostly), past vineyards to Kaiteriteri (kai=food Teri=fast, so, in Maori, a fast food oasis) and then to a beach at Motueka, where Wilsons double hull rammed into the sand, rolled out a gangplank and we boarded.

We boarded the boat and cruised northwest (not as far as Separation Point … no pun intended) as far as Onetahuti, where we began a few hours hike to Awaroa Inslet and the Meadowbank Homestead Lodge.

Unfortunately, we couldn’t go all the way north because the ocean swells at Totaranui would be too large for the boat, so todays port was a bit south at Onetahuti. Non-tour passengers were off loaded at beaches in Torrent Bay, Murderers Bay now named Observation Beach (first Euros saw campfires along the shore and thought they were being welcomed but the fires were a Maori signal that “invaders are coming” so a spot of bother for all who eventually met on the sands). Another landing at Bark Bay and we finally clambered down the gangplank onto the soft sand at Tonga Quarry.

From Tonga Quarry, our guides Shannon and AJ – both experienced and certified as guides after a special 2-year college course and years of experience- lead our 21 person group along a mountainous coastal track like nothing we have ever before seen. Absolutely stunning, even under overcast skies.

Forests of five kinds of ferns, full of birdsong, and 150 year-old beech trees whose bark is black with algae. A rare red, frilly flower that blooms for only two weeks a year. Long curving sandy beaches, hundreds of feet wide at low tide, across a wide bay dotted with a few islands, the mountain range behind Nelson and along the opposite shore is wreathed in mist.

We finish our twisting tramp through the forest at Awaroa where we will spend two nights in the Wilson compound called Meadowbank. Our group has 3 New Zealand sisters (one from Queenstown), a couple from Auckland, 3 Canadians from Alberta, 2 Americans from Portland, Maine, 4 women from Sydney, a couple from Sydney, and the 4 of us from DC.

Gita carved out the bank along the beech beneath our lodge. After dinner in a living room/lounge area with a very welcome gas-log fireplace, we are briefed by Shannon about tomorrow’s tramping or kayaking and shown a 6 minute movie about the Wilson family who own the property, the tour business and built the Meadowbrook Lodge.

Great grandma Adele married William Hatfield when she was 18 and was taken to live in what is still an isolated location, Sawpit Point at the entrance to Awaroa Inlet. They had nine children but Adele was still lonely. Eventually Adele and William took seven of their children to live in Nelson and Adele opened a boarding house. William Knowles became a boarder in Adele’s lodging and she had a son by him. Adele and her first husband divorce. Adele’s business went bankrupt and several of her children returned to Meadowbank. Willam the second drank a lot and Adele obtained a court order against him. One year later Knowles murders Adele by following her into the street and shooting her in the breast. They had two children together and both were eventually united with Adele’s other children. The land is in trust.

Each room at Meadowbank in named for a family member. The walls and ceilings are knotty pine and feel like cabins although they are connected. From the porch the beach is enormous when the tide is out. The variance in depth is 5 meters, among the largest tidal depth in New Zealand.

Another day in Paradise.