Spring break I: Abel Tasman National Park

I’ve really dropped off the blogosphere in the last month! Things got crazy (and not that interesting) as our first term of school was finishing up, but luckily I managed to get through writing all of my papers. And then, freedom for two whole weeks of spring break! My fellow American exchange students Dahlia, Phil, and Zak planned a trip around the north end of the south island, pretty much checking off the half of the island north of Christchurch off our of lists of places to visit.

Because we did so much I’m going to break my recap into parts based on where we went. Our first destination was Abel Tasman National Park. We spent our first day driving north through some gorgeous mountain passes, eventually getting close to the trail we were starting the next morning. Our plan for accommodation for our whole trip was camping (both to save money and because it’s fun), and New Zealand vaguely sort of allows freedom camping so we tried to go our whole trip without paying for a campsite. We had a list of free campgrounds that we found online but we couldn’t find the first one so we ended up having to look for a suitable place near the trailhead that may or may not have been legal. We ended up finding a good spot kind of in the backyard of a house that we think was a rental vacation home, but no one ever came home so it was all good! This was the first of a number of…interesting…camping locations.

The next morning we headed out for our backpacking trip through Abel Tasman. It’s the most visited national park in New Zealand and contains the Coast Walk, which is one of NZ’s nine Great Walks. It goes 41km/26mi through golden sand beaches and coastal hills, making it one of the most picturesque spots in NZ. We initially planned to walk the entire coast walk in three days and then hike back on a different trail, making a six day loop. This meant some seriously heavy backpacks, especially considering we were hiking for about 16km/10mi/6 hours each day!

The beauty of the scenery outweighed the size of our backpacks so we got to our first campsite in good spirits, having taken a few fun detours along the way. We checked out the beach and unfortunately discovered how bad the sandflies are even in winter. I’ll be complaining about sandfly bites for the rest of this entry, and probably the rest of my stay in NZ, so allow me to explain that sandfly bites are about a million times itchier and longer lasting than mosquito bites, there are tons of them in many areas of NZ, and bug repellent and even bundling up don’t really do much against them. Our first night on the trail was a night of adjustment to those bites, plus cold (it is still winter here), bland camping food, and total exhaustion – all of these things continued for the rest of the trip but it’s amazing what you can get used to when you’re having fun!

The second day was much like the first but even more tiring as we rushed to get to water crossings before the tide came in and climbed up and down some serious hills. We all, and me especially, started feeling the pain of heavy packs and, for Dahlia and I, not much backpacking experience. We easily agreed that we should ditch the second half of our loop and instead only do the scenic trail and then take the water taxi back to town, like most hikers do. This put everyone in good sprits but I was still seriously hurting by the sixth hour. Three of the four of us were experiencing some solid knee pain going down hills, and by the home stretch to camp I was barely limping along and, embarrassingly enough, crying a little because of the shooting pains in my feet. We finally got to camp and decided to stay in the hut instead of camp due to our pathetic state. It was then that I got redemption – my hiking weakness was due to five of the biggest blisters you’ve ever seen!

I didn't take any pictures this day because I was too busy being exhausted, but someone at least got one of us on this cool bridge!

My sad feet and our makeshift bandages of baby wipes and athletic tape

We did some much needed stretching, laughing, eating, and making friends with other hikers in the hut, and then paid for it in the morning when a DOC ranger came and busted us for not paying for the hut (we were camping because it was way cheaper). Even so, it was worth the comfort for my poor tired body. On morning three we set out across a seriously cold tidal crossing and trekked on through some more gorgeous beaches. After an hour I was already back to my knee pain and blister-induced limping, so I was quite glad when we got to the next campsite and decided to just drop our stuff there and anyone who felt up to it could just do the last bit of the trail as a day hike. Everyone went except me, and it was frustrating to be left out because I just am not in as good of shape as the others, but it was also nice to relax at the beach and get cleaned up a bit.

Sunrise outside of Awaroa Hut

I used my alone time at camp to take some classic kayak and beach pictures

Sunset at Totaranui

This is when we decided that Phil looks like Sean Penn and Zak bundled himself up like a nun to protect himself from sandflies and cold

That night we made a friend – a weka bird (the NZ equivalent of squirrels) was hanging out by our table scavenging for food but we took a liking to him because wekas can’t fly and are therefore pretty silly looking. We named him Kevin after the bird from the movie Up. He kept pecking at our Frisbee trying to determine if it was food, running away, and then coming back, and we were quite entertained. We saw many more Kevin birds at our campsites for the rest of the trip, which made for a fun joke until there were ten Kevins instead of one surrounding our tents!

On the morning of the fourth day we met our water taxi on the beach and took off on a very enjoyable hour-long ride back to town. Our driver was very friendly and took a lot of detours to show us cool stuff like seals and unique parts of the coast. It was also very satisfying to see the whole way we’d walked from the coast, because we could recognize a lot of it and it was quite far! He even let Dahlia and I drive the boat. When we got to town they hitched the boat up onto a trailer pulled by a tractor and we rode that way through town back to our car – pretty comical. Abel Tasman was absolutely beautiful and the hike was a blast even with all the struggles I had. Definitely learned some good lessons about backpacking in the future, what to not bring to make my pack lighter, and how to avoid blisters!

First tramping trip - Otehake hot springs

This weekend marks my first tramping (what they call hiking) trip in New Zealand! It was a blast, totally made me want to do way more backpacking trips while I’m here, and was generally very satisfying because it’s something I pictured myself doing while I was here.

Me and a number of the other international students I’ve been hanging out with signed up for an overnight trip out to some hot pools with the university tramping club. We drove up to Arthur’s Pass, which is a national park in the mountains about two hours from Christchurch. The drive was very scenic, and it was great to get out of the city and see some more of the surrounding area, but nerves were also running high among novice hikers like myself because we didn’t really know what we were in for. We knew this trip contained of a number of river crossings, which is scary because they could be as deep as our waists and it’s winter here so we knew we were in for a cold few days and hoped we wouldn’t be miserable the whole time.

Gorgeous Arthur's Pass on the drive in (unfortunately it was cloudy all weekend)

The trip started off with some river crossings right off the bat – and that water was cold! It wasn’t too bad though, we kept moving and everything but our feet dried pretty quickly. We wound through woods and fields, heading up the valley to the hot pools. Let me tell you, these Kiwis (or maybe it’s just experienced hikers in general) are beasts! We didn’t really stop at all, even for water, in our first three hours, and we were walking much faster than I would have on my own, so I tired out pretty quickly and it became a mind game to keep up and not be crabby. The trail got more difficult as we went up and down rugged trails that can’t even really be called trails through the forest, and the worst of all came at the end when we had to zigzag up the river for the last few miles. At this point we were freezing with sore ankles from walking over so many rocks and really not pleased about having to get in the deepest water yet again and again. My feet have never been so cold, but just when it was getting unbearable we finally made it to our destination after 7 tough miles – the Otehake hot pools!

A smaller river crossing

And a more accurate representation of most of the river crossings - although there were still plenty deeper and faster than this! 

There were really no trails to speak of for much of this tramp

Some of the ladies, and an example of the nasty rocky terrain most of the hike was on

My poor cold feet upon our arrival (you can't really tell but they were purple)

I camped with my friend Dahlia (in a one person tent, which was cozy) and we headed down to join the others in the hot pools soon after setting up camp. It was just one small, shallow pool of very hot water (no major destination you’ll find in guidebooks or anything) but very satisfying after such a long cold hike – the water was so hot you could just sit in the one foot of water and be totally warm. Everyone stayed in the water more or less the rest of the night and I talked to some interesting new people. Very fun, very worth the trip.

Probably about half of the group enjoying the hot pools

It was super painful to put my cold toes in at first, but soon enough I was in all the way like everyone else!

Camping was not too cold, which was reassuring, but it was still pretty miserable putting on those soaking wet boots again in the morning and setting off for home. We went an easier, flatter way on the way back and I think return trips are always easier anyway since you know how far you’re going. The walk back was nice because I wasn’t so preoccupied with just keeping up and not passing out so I could enjoy how pretty the mountains around us were. We had some well-earned hot chocolate on the drive home, and though I was sorer than I’ve ever been that night I’m fine now! It wasn’t easy—I’m not used to carrying a pack and that makes things much harder—but I’m stoked that I survived my first tramping trip because it means I know I can take on more. And I must say, all those deep river crossings in the winter (it was even snowing for part of the time) make me feel pretty intense!