After a couple lovely nights at the Honeysuckle House Hostel in Nelson, I hitched a ride with my friend Nora to Marahau, the start of the Abel Tasman Great Walk, which meanders along some of the best beaches in all of New Zealand.
The first day, we knocked out most of the inland trail, part of the 90km loop that we were doing to see all of the AT National Park. There was about 1,000m of climbing this first day on decent trail, although it was a bit dull as there were not really any views and the trail was very coarse, with roots and rocks jutting out under just about every step. We passed the Castle Rocks hut for lunch, then onto the Moa Park shelter, and finally, we made it to Awapoto Hut in time for dinner. This place made the day’s hardships all worth it, as it had extraordinary views up and down the coast and of the sunset, being about 2,000 feet above the Pacific ocean below. And we had the whole 16 bunk hut to ourselves, which is always nice.
The next day, we had a pleasant stroll downhill to the Whariwharangi hut and beach, where we took lunch and met back up with the cruisy Abel Tasman trail, which was as smooth as any footpath I’ve ever been on.
We rode this another few kilometers to Mutton Cove, our camp for the night, on a little bluff just above the beach right up against the calm ocean. We had a nice time laying out on the beach, swimming, and playing cards with some guys names Liam and Rick who were also camping there that night. We played on a picnic table that we moved under a big cedar tree, which made adequate shelter from the big rainfall happening at the moment.
The next day, we made the short walk to Oretihuti beach and were there by 2 or 3 in the afternoon.
Finally, the last day, we walked back to the trailhead at Marahau and hitched back into town. I lost Nora after I left in the morning and we apparently both spent the whole day not sure if we were supposed to be waiting for or trying to catch up with each other.
In any case, I made it to Anchorage Beach for lunch, checked out the Cleopatra pool and rock water slide, and walked out to the town around 5pm.
I got a pretty quick hitch with a group of blokes from the UK who were here on vacation, though they had spent much of their time working on winery farms and couldn’t say enough bad things about the laborious days they suffered. We had some great music on the ride back to Nelson, and I was thankful to get dropped off just a block away from my favorite hostel in NZ, the Honeysuckle House. I arrived, walked through the house, and sat in the back yard, before seeing Nora in the bedroom and having a great reunion catching up on our super different and similar adventures that day. Later, we went out for dinner, and picked up some beer and wine for the celebration of finishing the Abel Tasman trail. All in all a pretty sweet diversion and distraction from ending the Te Araroa.
From here, we will hitch to Havelock and pick up the Queen Charlotte Track through the Marlborough Sounds, 90km to Ship Cove, the Northern Terminus of our South Island Te Araroa adventure. Stay tuned!