Food, sleeping bag, emergency beacon, first aid kit, warm clothes, cool clothes, rain clothes … the packing list went on. How was I going to fit everything into my backpack? Would I be able to carry it all?
I was planning my first multi-day tramping trip in Abel Tasman, a national park in NZ that is considered the ‘friendliest’ Great Walk. I had never done a Great Walk before and used to joke that I wasn’t a real Kiwi for this reason. I’d long ago decided that hiking wasn’t ‘me’, assuming I wouldn’t enjoy it because I wasn’t particularly good at anything physical. But for years I’d seen photos of the golden beaches and azure water of Abel Tasman and longed to visit it, even though it seemed a bit tricky to get to: a flight or ferry, a drive, a water taxi, a hike. And then what? Would I feel stuck? Get injured? Have a panic attack in the woods? Encounter a bear? (We don’t have bears, but my imagination is strong.)
Back in February I’d visited Kāpiti Island, another trip that had seemed like a big deal but was ridiculously easy, and then on a whim had messaged my friend Katherine, who is a seasoned tramper: “Want to do Abel Tasman sometime?” “Yes!!” she’d replied immediately, and thus began 10 months of planning: flights, huts, water taxis, rental car, packing lists. I was excited. I was scared. The only hiking experience I’d had was on subantarctic Enderby Island in 2016, which was, to put it mildly, an adventure. One of my life’s great experiences (you can read about it in Trial of Strength or in this newspaper article, or if you prefer audio there’s a radio interview), but it did skew my understanding of what a ‘typical’ New Zealand tramp was really like (e.g. most don’t involve falling into seal wallows).
Tramping in November can be a throw of the dice here, weather-wise. The tracks have only just opened for the season, conditions are changeable, and the previous week it had snowed in the South Island. You have to pack for every possible outcome, without overpacking. I was hoping for at least one day of good weather – amazingly, we had four days of perfect weather.
I won’t bore you with a blow-by-blow account of my holiday, but my main points are: 1) A multi-day hike really distills life down to the basics of food, water and shelter. 2) Every little snack break felt exciting. 3) The bush was beautiful and filled with the squarks, pips and whistles of native birds: tūī, pīwakawaka, riroriro, weka, kākā, kererū… (If these names mean nothing I recommend the website NZ Birds Online!) 4) Being out of range for a few days with no phone signal was fab. I hadn’t realised the tension I felt from always carrying my phone and responding to every notification. 5) Having no power was also surprisingly great. We cooked with a gas cooker, and everyone in the huts just went to sleep when it got dark, which was about 8:30pm, and then woke at dawn. It felt good!
The beaches really were as beautiful as the pictures I’d seen. All my photos here were taken with a phone click, with no filters or effects.
I had five swims in three days, all at different beaches. The water was so clear, blue, sparkling, and fresh – at 15 degrees C, neither too cold nor too tepid (for my tastes). After a long day of hiking in the sun, the sea cooled my hot skin, and soothed my blisters and aching legs. It renewed me. The beaches were almost empty, sometimes completely empty save for a few oystercatchers.
On our final night we treated ourselves to a night of ‘glamping’ (beds in tents) on someone’s property and they cooked us wood-fired pizza for dinner. Delicious! “Would anyone like a cup of tea?” they asked us afterwards. “Oooh, yes please!” we all chorused happily. Tea arrived along with pieces of Whittakers chocolate and we almost passed out. It’s the little things! The group of us chatted as the sun set and it grew dark, until the ruru (little NZ owls) started calling.
I feel so grateful. The trip was one of the highlights of my year. It felt good to push through my fear and also enjoy myself. I learned a lot from Katherine, and the other trampers we met along the way, about how to plan and enjoy a hike. Now I want to do more of them!
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Back to real life now and it’s rainy and blowing a southerly here in Wellington. I had a week of no swimming – I felt all zen after the trip and just wanted to hold that feeling for a bit longer. But as challenges and worries creep back in (a family member’s in hospital, for example) I have returned to the pool and yesterday had a medicinal dip at the beach down the road, bobbing in the wind-driven swell, quieting my thoughts, ducking underwater to enjoy a few seconds of cold submersion, that feeling of sinking below the blue veil that separates air from water, rapid breaths from simply being.
Big fan's of Youtube's Chris and Danya, on their hikes across NZ and it really wets the appetite. This sounds like perfection!