Abel Tasman has one of the largest tidal ranges in New Zealand, and the coast track crosses three estuaries that can only be forded at low tide. At Torrent Bay, Awaroa Inlet, and Wainui Inlet, the receding water reveals sand flats you can walk across in boots. Two hours after low tide, those flats disappear under rising water that is too deep and too swift to cross safely. The alternative is a high-tide track that loops through the bush behind each bay, adding kilometres and climbing. Planning a walk here means consulting tide tables as carefully as you would a weather forecast. Water taxi operators run on published schedules between Marahau and Totaranui, and they time their stops to the tides as much as to the walkers. The tidal rhythm shapes every aspect of the experience: when you wake, when you walk, when you rest.

The coastline between Marahau and Totaranui is a succession of bays, each with its own character. Anchorage Bay has the largest hut and campsite on the track and serves as the social hub for the first night. Bark Bay sits at the mouth of a wide estuary where the Falls River is crossed on a 47-metre swing bridge, one of the track's few structures that feel engineered rather than organic. Between them, smaller coves, Tinline Bay, Coquille Bay, Apple Tree Bay, Akersten Bay, offer limited campsites and sandy beaches that empty out quickly because the water taxis do not stop at all of them. North of Totaranui, where the water taxis turn back, the track grows quieter. Anapai Bay has rock stack formations at its northern end. Anatakapau Bay and Mutton Cove are separated by cliffs with a tiny rocky inlet between them. The crowds thin because the access thins, and the beaches feel earned.

A side track near the northern end of the route leads to Separation Point, where a lighthouse stands on cliffs above a New Zealand fur seal colony. The seals haul out on the rocks below, and from the cliff edge you can watch them surfing the swells and basking in groups on the warm stone. Adding the detour to Separation Point costs about an hour of walking time, but it delivers one of the track's most memorable encounters. The name itself marks a geographic boundary: Separation Point is where the coast turns from facing north to facing west, dividing Golden Bay from Tasman Bay. Beyond the lighthouse, both the main track and the side route climb inland over forested hills to Whariwharangi Bay, where a restored farm homestead has been converted into the track's final hut. The homestead is a reminder that this coast was farmed before it was parkland.

What sets Abel Tasman apart from other Great Walks is how accessible it is without committing to the full multi-day traverse. Commercial water taxi operators run daily schedules along the coast, picking up and dropping off walkers at beaches from Marahau to Totaranui. You can walk a single section in a morning, take a boat to the next bay, and walk back. Sea kayaking is equally popular, and many visitors combine paddling and walking in itineraries that would be impossible on a track without water access. Some backpacker accommodation is provided by boats moored offshore, a floating hostel concept that exists nowhere else on New Zealand's Great Walks. The park generated over one million New Zealand dollars in revenue during its record-breaking 2015 season. This popularity is both the track's strength and its vulnerability: the golden beaches and mild year-round weather draw more people than any other tramping track in the country.

The last section of the Abel Tasman Coast Track is its shortest: 5.7 kilometres from Whariwharangi Bay over a saddle to Wainui Bay. The climb out of Whariwharangi is steep enough to feel final, a last effort before the trail drops to the estuary's edge and follows the shoreline to a car park. Wainui Inlet itself is no longer officially part of the track, but it can be crossed at low tide, one more tidal negotiation to close the journey. From May through September, mountain bikers are allowed on the Gibbs Hill track between Totaranui and Wainui Bay, sharing the last kilometre with coastal walkers. The seasonal overlap works because winter foot traffic is light and the terrain, while beautiful, is not fragile. Abel Tasman is New Zealand's smallest national park, just 225 square kilometres, but it packs more accessible coastline into that space than parks ten times its size.