I feel a little bad. But should I? It’s complicated.
Was it my fault for putting him through the ringer? Do I blame the lady at the i-Site for pointing me in this direction? Ugh.
These were the thoughts going through my head as we were laying out all of our belongings on a deck to dry off in the sun.
Rewind a few days to me devising a plan to conquer Abel Tasman National Park. I’ve heard it’s one of the best places to see in New Zealand. “So beautiful,” everyone says.
With all the hype, I wanted to get as much out of it as possible.
It’s one of the New Zealand great walks, 51km (32 miles) across 3-5 days depending on your pace. The huts along the track are $75 to stay in though. And they’re the most basic accommodation – no power, no cooking, no showers; just a thin mattress under a roof. Campsites were $30, so that was my play. Still pretty steep, but more manageable.
The thing was, I didn’t want to walk the entire track. I mean, I have the knees of a 65 year old. I’m not sure I could do it in consecutive days even though it wasn’t an intense grade. Plus, there were some awesome kayaking opportunities along the coast that I wanted to hit up.
I went to the Nelson i-Site and got some advice from one of the staff members. Take a water taxi up to one of the highest points the first day, do a loop walk, camp, do a one-day guided kayak, camp, then walk out. A pretty nice combination of everything. Sounded perfect.
Then I got a Facebook message from Jonathan, a Canadian traveler I rafted with in Taupo, asking what my upcoming plans were. I told him the route I was looking at and invited him along. Significantly more fun to have company on a multi-day trek anyhow.
To my surprise, he’s down to join. Sweet.
I met up with him in Nelson after I left Pete and Kyra’s and we miraculously hitched ourselves to a hostel right at the start of the track (which honestly is not that close to anything). There was no cellular service and the wifi allotment from the backpackers was 100MB/day. A bit laughable.
I repacked my bag, prepared my food and got ready for the epic journey.
Jonathan looked at the weather forecast and started getting nervous.
Him: “It’s supposed to rain 9mm tomorrow.”
Me: “Is that a lot?”
This whole imperial vs. metric system issue is 100% confusing. My scale for everything — temperature, distance, weight — is completely off.
The important bit I gathered was a high probability of precipitation.
Ok. Well, everything was already planned, so we’ll just deal with it as it comes.
I didn’t have a traditional rain cover for my pack so I borrowed a garbage bag and fashioned a poncho-type thing just in case.
We woke up early in the morning and went to catch our water taxi at the kayaking company we were using. It wasn’t raining which seemed like a good omen.
Such a pleasant boat ride out to the starting point, too. We made a few stops along the way to drop off the kayak group for that day. Then it was just me, Jonathan and the skipper, Justin. He did his best to get us to a spot where we wouldn’t have to get our feet wet. We disembarked the boat safely but had to cross a stream over a sand dune anyway so the shoes still had to come off.
Anyway, it was really working out. We were crushing our walk under some moderate cover and it still wasn’t raining. The sun actually peaked out a few times. There were some nice lookouts and we even decided to do a side path that took us out to Separation Point to see some seals.
Shortly thereafter, we arrived at the first main checkpoint, Wharawharangi (roughly halfway). We stopped to have lunch and take a breather. We were harassed through the entire meal by some pesky Wekas — a flightless bird that’s always trying to knick some food.
As we packed up and got ready to move on, we were feeling good. There was about another 4-5hrs before we would arrive at our campsite. Manageable. The sign directing us made it seem like it’d be smooth sailing as well. Less kms than our previous leg and less time. No problem.
This was blatantly not the case.
First off, this is when it started to rain. It was only a sprinkle but we decided to activate our rain gear. Jonathan was well prepared with a cover for his pack and an umbrella. I had my Gore-Tex jacket and my bag poncho.
Feeble attempts.
I was convinced that even if it started to pour, we would be mostly under a canopy based on the type of path we’d been on all day. Again, not the case.
As the rain increased, so did the openness of the track. We were fully in the elements. It was the hardest rain I’ve seen in New Zealand to date. Reminiscent of a Virginia thunderstorm, except it lasted for 7+ hours.
No wonder everything is so green here.
And of course, instead of an easy walk that we could power through, it was an insane climb. Gibbs Hill is a son of a bitch. It wasn’t so much a path as it was a steep wash out. After being continually defeated and disheartened, we made it to the peak. We stopped long enough to appreciate how awesome the view would’ve been in good weather and forged ahead.
We were convinced there was a hut an hour away from our campsite that we could take refuge in — sit next to the fire to dry out for a minute. This was our pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. It was what we needed. What we were looking forward to.
Then we got to Totaranui after another three hours of walking to discover nope. There was not a hut with a cozy, warm fire. No comfy chair with hot chocolate. No toasty socks to put back on.
“Yeah, nah,” as the Kiwis would say.
The check-in office was even closed. The best we had was a cooking shelter with two open walls. Better than nothing to get out of the rain for a bit.
Now, it was decision time.
There was no way we were camping in the wet, cold rain. The dilemma came in the form of staying there under a pop-up tent that would loosely act as a reprieve from the rain (and getting up super early to make up the extra distance to meet our kayak crew in the morning) or continuing on for another two hours to an actual hut. The upside was, of course, the fire and warmth. And being able to sleep in a little bit since it was closer to the rendezvous point.
The major downside was that we would have to cross the Awaroa inlet. The only way to do so was within two hours of low tide.
We didn’t have that information because we weren’t planning on going that far. Ooof. And there was very fleeting cell service to try and pull it up.
Luckily, I was able to get a sliver of a bar and find the details. It was 7pm and low tide was at 8:13pm. It would be dark, but if we hustled we could make it happen.
The fire. It was everything. The primary motivation. As wet as my feet were and as much as my back hurt, I felt like I could power through because of that prospect.
So on we went into the night. The rain eased up at points, giving a false sense of hope. It wouldn’t stop for several hours yet.
After busting out the headlight and forcing ourselves over some more switchbacks, we came to the inlet. The other side of the track was probably a little longer than a football field away. We were meant to look for a big orange marker to direct us. We didn’t calculate how impossible it would be to see that in the dark. Shit.
It seemed like there was a light off in the distance, so that’s what we headed for.
Then we encountered the obstacle of the tidal crossing. There were probably 6-8 pockets of water that were knee to ankle deep and a few feet wide. Couldn’t see any areas narrow enough to jump over and didn’t really have enough time to go searching. We had been warned that the tide could get up to 7 knots rushing in or out. There was no turning back now.
I just went for it. I didn’t bother to take my socks or shoes off. I was just wading through the ice cold water, semi-directionless. Jonathan took his shoes off, braving the minefield of rocks and shells.
We kept aiming for the dim light, and thankfully, that paid off.
As we got closer, we noticed it was moving — a headlamp from someone at the hut.
Salvation. We made it.
We climbed the three steps up to the porch and saw some blissful flames through the window. Yes, please.
First, I had to rinse out the pebbles and immense amount of sand in my shoes and socks.
The other hikers were shocked that we were just arriving. They also warned us of how strict the warden was. Remember, we had a campsite reservation that was $45 cheaper than the hut fee. Ugh. The last thing I wanted to deal with was a callous park ranger. Whatever.
I started to unpack dinner and a change of clothes and realized basically everything in my bag was soaked. The poncho did it’s job for the top of the pack but it didn’t cover my tent, which was strapped to the bottom. Moisture seeped up from there and reached almost everything. My sleeping bag, camera equipment, and clothes were all wet. Dammit.
I spent like an hour and a half standing next to the fire holding up various articles of clothing. I set my shoes right next to the wood stove hoping they’d be dry enough by morning. I was completely exhausted.
Hooray for moderately shitty but dry sleeping conditions!
By the time Jonathan and I left in the morning, most things were only damp and we escaped an encounter with the warden. But, I left behind my favorite shirt absent-mindedly. I’ll take the tradeoff, I suppose.
We left the hut at 8:50am for what we thought was a 30 minute walk to meet our kayaking group by 9:30am.
Subsequent stressful experience: poorly-worded signs.
There was a point where we should’ve turned left to take the beachside pathway. Instead, we turned right on the 1hr45min track.
Whoops.
After climbing for 20 minutes we realized our mistake but didn’t have much of a choice but to continue, We ran, which is next to impossible after you’ve spent like 11 hours walking the day before. We stumbled onto the beach just as three kayaks were paddling away. It was 9:33am.
This can’t be happening.
Surely, they would’ve waited 5 minutes for us to show up.
I waited on the beach as Jonathan went up to the lodge to check. He came back and said we were at the wrong beach.
I was like THERE’S NO FUCKING WAY. And he was like, yeah, I’m playing. They’re just running really late.
Phew.
We saw Justin and his boat turn the corner into the bay. All was well. And it got better when the guide got off to great us. Nicole. “Holy smokes,” as Jonathan would say.
The remote coast kayaking trip we went on was pretty sick.
It was a small group of 6 people across 3 kayaks, plus Nicole riding solo. She told us the story of Abel Tasman as we got our bearings. Over the course of the day, we saw some seals and sting rays, had lunch in a beautiful harbor, and even used our picnic blanket as a sail for part of the way. It was a lovely contrast to the previous day.
At the end of the trip it was time to decide if Jonathan and I were going to camp for the night and walk out the next day or head back to dry off our stuff. It was a really tough call. The weather had turned nice and the camp site was basically right on the beach in an amazing bay. Plus, we were feeling good after such an awesome kayaking trip.
We decided to stay.
After setting up our tents and exploring a bit of the area, we made a fire and checked in with the warden. We were joined by a Belgian and French guy and shared stories throughout the evening. Once the fire died down we called it a night.
I fell asleep pretty quickly. Around 2am I started waking up every 15 minutes because of how freezing it was. The weather turned and I was in such a shitty tent. I knew it was cheap going in, but I was hoping the quality of my sleeping bag would save me. Unfortunately not. Then around 4am it started raining.
Cool.
I got up for good at 7:30am and started to pack up my tent in the drizzle. It was almost impossible to pry myself out of the lukewarm cocoon I made. But we had to start walking at 9am to ensure we would make another tidal crossing farther down the way. Jonathan surfaced when I was almost finished packing up. I saw a finger and an eyeball poking out of a small unzipping in his tent.
Apparently he’d eaten something that didn’t agree with him the night before. Nature of the beast packing food for multiple days, I suppose. He tried to sleep it off for a little bit longer. I waited in the food shelter shivering, hoping the small pockets of blue would fill the whole sky.
Getting a later start wasn’t a total dealbreaker. It just meant we’d have to take the high tide track which added another hour and a half of walking.
When Jonathan came out again, he just wanted to go back. That was fine by me. The weather was starting to clear up, but another 7 hours of walking did seem daunting.
Justin came back and shipped us home. By the time we re-checked into the hostel, the sun was shining and it was gorgeous.
That brings us back to the part where we were laying out everything in our bags on the deck. It looked like a shantytown. And thus, I was contemplating if I should apologize to Jonathan for bringing him along.
He actually thanked me for inviting him. It was a challenging time, character building, with some brilliance mixed in (Nicole).
In that moment, being able to lay in the sun was kind of euphoric. Also, Cup O’ Noodles never tasted so good.
There’s a lot to be said for being warm and dry.
