Flip-flopping the Abel Tasman

Today I said a sad goodbye to my trusty flipflops. 

Let me start at the beginning. After waving Golden Bay a fond farewell, we hopped our way over the hill to Marahau on the edge of the Abel Tasman National Park. We’d already spent one night on the stunning Totaranui beach on the other side of the National Park the night before starting Wwoofing and that was just beautiful, but we’d been told time and time again that it was worth visiting the other side too, so here we were. We arrived early afternoon so spent the first day just lounging on the beach (all to ourselves as usual and just stunning!) reading and having a dip, so it was the second day where we ventured along the highly acclaimed coastal walk into the park. You basically meander your way through the forest, sandwiched between the hillside and the beach, where you crawl past picturesque cove after picturesque cove, each of which has at most a spattering of people, at best, no-one else!

This is one of NZ’s ‘Great Walks’ and you can spend 4 days walking the entire length of coast to Totaranui at the far end. We only had the best part of one day, and our budget didn’t stretch to getting a taxi boat home which meant a round trip for us! This is great, until you get to the very furthest point of your walk…and then your flipflop breaks!

These aren’t just any flipflops. They were a birthday present from Mum two years ago and are my shoe of choice in any climate over 10°C. They have been dragged around Gambia, the streets of London and since leaving the UK at the start of Feb have only been replaced thrice (once for the wedding and twice on the plane) so can now add volcanoes, glaciers, waterfalls and forests to their conquests (indeed Brodie and I scoff at signs suggesting ‘sensible footwear’ and wave our flip-flopped feet in defiance at any booted-person we pass). What I’m saying is these are hardy, much-loved pieces of attire in which one can trust. But alas they let me down at the worst possible moment.

Incidentally this happened to me once before when climbing a mountain near Hong Kong. After being advised to take hiking equipment, and being told ‘it’s not suitable for girls (!!)’, Holly and I proceeded to trek up the massive hill in what we had on…and half way up my £2.99 Primani flipflop broke. That time I had a hair band I could tie-it together with and it worked fine from then on (hurrah!). This time it was irreparable which meant only one option-walking the entire way back in bare feet!! So I’ll leave you with the image of Brodie flip-flopping along in his super-short-closet-but-not-so-closet swimming shorts and me scurrying along next to him in barefeet and a summer dress (occasionally swapping which was perhaps even more comedy as his flipflops are waaaay too big for me so I looked a bit like a duck), as we passed dozens of hardcore trekkers in their walking boots and camping gear looking at us like lunatics!

RIP flipflops.