Located about 14 kilometres from Mārahau at the southern entrance to the Abel Tasman, Torrent Bay is a village of holiday houses on privately owned land within the National Park. There is no road access to Torrent, electricity supply or permanent residents so it is largely a place for wonderful, classic Kiwi summer holidays.
My personal relationship with Torrent Bay has been somewhat complex, has involved some conflicted thinking and it has changed over time. If you will allow me to draw a comparison with a relationship to a person it would be like meeting somebody and thinking they are both attractive and nice, but after a while I feel like the person is indeed still attractive but isn’t as nice as I previously thought, and then once I’ve got to know and understand that person a bit better, my opinion has softened. Now, I’m probably just confusing you at this point, but please do stick with me.
The first time I ever visited (met) Torrent Bay was in the summer of 1998 when I was visiting from my home base in Shanghai, China. I was dropped by one of our water taxis at Bark Bay, and ran the 7 kilometres through to Torrent Bay. I remember reaching Torrent Bay a lot quicker than I had been expecting and feeling like I had only really warmed up. Now, there are two possibilities with this memory. Firstly, I was simply young and fit and the steep climb from Falls River up the top of the ridge line was nothing for me back in those days. Secondly, I now view this memory through rose-tinted glasses, and the zig-zagging track up from the Falls River Swing Bridge was just brutal as it always has been. I have simply blocked the pain and suffering from my memory. Whatever the case, I ran down the hill into Torrent and found my aunty and uncle, Christine and Bud Nalder who were staying there, something they did often. I spent my day with them and one of their kind friends who gave me a wonderful sailing lesson in the estuary. In stark contrast to the mean streets of Shanghai, and the bitter winter I had jetting in from, Torrent Bay was heaven on earth. The sun was shining and almost every person I saw was in bare feet, a practice that would shock the local people of Shanghai to their core if they were to see this at any time of the year. The contrast in lifestyles was so jarring, and it reminded me intensely of the wonderful times I had spent at the beaches in Hawke’s Bay as a child and much younger adult.
Fast forward to about 2012 and I had some reasonably robust debates with the representatives of the Torrent Bay Ratepayers Association. While I totally agreed something needed to be done to mitigate the effects of so many day visitors being dropped off and picked up at Torrent Bay, and commercial operators had failed to moderate the impact on private landowners there voluntarily, some of the attitudes I encountered were manifestly unjust.
"Things tend to blur into one long, lazy day of sitting on the beach reading..."
When we moved to this area at the end of 2010, many of the locals I met would tell me they had a bach ‘up the bay’, which generally meant Torrent Bay. In fact, so many people told me about their bach at Torrent I began to wonder just how many baches were actually there, and perhaps there was another part of the village that I didn’t know about. It took me a few years to realise that many of those baches are shared by multiple generations of the same large local family and have been owned by those families for generations.
Over the past several years we’ve spent a few weekends staying in a bach at Torrent during the winter, and we’ve practically had the place to ourselves. This makes it great for family time, free of the distractions present in everyday life. More recently we’ve been incredibly lucky to be able to rent bach over the new year period when every bach is full to the gunnels. Twice now, for a bit over a week we have been able to live the dream of an old-school, Kiwi summer holiday at the beach, and it has been magical. The bach has plenty of beds so we’ve been joined by different friends who come up and stay for a few nights at a time. The weather has been spectacular both years so things tend to blur into one long, lazy day of sitting on the beach reading, swimming and then a big BBQ during which we tend to engage in more rehydration than is strictly necessary. Then we wake the next day and do it all again.
I am an active relaxer so I need to at least go for a run to feel like I’ve actually done something every day. So I usually head around the Torrent estuary and up to the ridge line above Anchorage before returning to jump straight into the sea to cool off. We took our inflatable standup paddle board last time so I was also able to paddle up the estuary to the mouth of the Torrent River, where I beached the SUP and wandered up to Cleopatra’s Pool for a freshwater swim before paddling back.
The bach we’ve rented overlooks the jetty around the back of the main beach in the estuary, so we’ve spent many hours sitting up on the deck watching the ebb and flow of both the tide and the day overall. There is no shortage of things to look at as the boats come in and out from the jetty, ferrying people with their supplies. Walkers pass through and can be seen wandering across the estuary coming from or heading towards Anchorage. People are out in sailing dinghies and all other manner of watercraft either heading out for a fish or just cruising around passing the time.
On New Year’s Eve every year there is an extremely impressive fireworks display, the launch point of which is a barge placed out in the middle of the bay. It is a surreal experience, with everybody down on the main beach enjoying themselves, watching a world-class fireworks display in this remote location. Then on New Year’s Day itself the locals hold a sports day on the grassed reserve in the middle of the beach, a tradition that has been running for many decades.
"On New Year’s Eve every year there is an extremely impressive fireworks display..."
Watching people enjoy their time with their families while I am doing exactly that with my own family, I have grown to understand why people love the place so much and were reasonably militant as they sought to protect the place from being overrun by visitors all of those years ago. And the balance seems to be about right too. There is a small DOC campsite so the general public can stay there too, and as commercial operators, we have adapted to the restrictions for the drop-off only of passengers until noon each day. Now, and with the benefit of hindsight, I see Torrent Bay as an example of how we as commercial operators need to work proactively to protect the park from over-visitation before, not after it creates problems.
Here's a few ways to visit Torrent Bay!
Water Taxi – One Way Fare
Water Taxi | Half DayBridge and Beach
Walking & Hiking | Full DayAbel Tasman Classic
Walking & Hiking | Full Day
Falls River
Walking & Hiking | Full DayHeart of the Park
Walking & Hiking | Full DayPaddle & Walk
Guided Kayak & Walk | Full DayBlog & photography by Brendan Alborn
Owner Operator
Brendan has a long association with the Abel Tasman, visiting it for the first time when his parents moved to Marahau in 1997. After spending much of his life overseas, Brendan and his family moved to the area at the end of 2010. When Brendan is not spending his time in the outdoors he seems to spend much of his time creating even flimsier justifications for spending more time in the outdoors.