Abel Tasman National Park, New Zealand | 'Where the forest meets the sea in shades of gold and jade'
Abel Tasman is New Zealand's smallest national park and its most quietly spectacular. Stretching along the top of the South Island, it stitches together a coastline of amber granite headlands, turquoise tidal inlets, and dense native bush that glows electric green after rain. The park takes its name from Dutch explorer Abel Janszoon Tasman, the first European to sight New Zealand in 1642, though Maori had long known this coast as a place of abundant shellfish and sheltered passage. There is a particular quality of light here in the late afternoon when the sun drops low over Tasman Bay and turns the water from blue to molten copper, and the pohutukawa trees along the shore catch that warmth in their twisted red branches like they are holding the day in place.
The watercolor palette of Abel Tasman is one of the most generous in the Southern Hemisphere. Think warm washes of raw sienna and burnt umber in the iron-rich granite, layered against the clearest cerulean you will ever try to mix on a palette. The forest interior softens everything to sap green and yellow ochre, while the wet sand at low tide reflects a pale aquamarine that shifts to lavender as clouds move through.
