24 - 28 January 2007
People: Amelia, Emma, Emily, Olivia, Marion, Tiffany, Kathryn, Lizzy, Dani, Sam, Chrystal
Now, its been well over two years since I did this track, but I had completed the same walk at least twice before the trip I write of here, so at least the track itself is easy to remember!
We started in Wellington, staying overnight at the guide hall to make sure everyone had everything and that all the food was sorted in such a way as to keep it safe until needed. Dropped at the ferry terminal at 7.30am, we had a nice, relaxing start to our week. Chrystal met us in Picton, having been in the South Island on holiday for the previous week, and we boarded our bus bound for Nelson, then onward to Kaiteriteri beach for the night.
We had a quick swim at Kaiteriteri in the afternoon, before having ice creams from the shop and cooking dinner on our little gas cookers at our tent site with our little tents... We felt a bit insignificant when we compared our little site with the massive behemoth tents that surrounded us... Emaa, Olivia and I shared a tent fly to save weight and it was lovely to have that light breeze coming through the tent at night.
In the morning we started lazily. Safe Crossing time at Awarua wasnt until 7pm, and it was only an hours water taxi and two hours walk to get there. We were booked on a Noon taxi, which meant sitting out at the beach in the heat with all our gear for a couple of hours after we cleared our campsite. the shuttle ran to time at least, and while out we got to see some seals.
Working on the theory that it shouldnt get full dark until about 9.30pm and it was only meant to be an hour and a bit from Awarua to Onetahuti, we had planned to walk through to that campsite in the late evening in order to make day two slightly shorter. This meant we needed to have had dinner, cleaned up and repacked by 7pm, ready to start crossing. Now, the thing with the Awaroa Inlet is that "safe crossing time" extends quite a way each side of low tide (about 2 hours), and if you go at the very start or very end, the water gets quite deep...
(This isnt the deepest it got of course. The girls all wound up having to hold their packs funny in order to avoid getting them wet too)
Deep water means slow movement, and looking back I think it would have been better to wait for actual low tide before crossing and then stay at the Awarua campsite, especially as it got well dark before we managed to get to the campsite and one of the groups nearly got lost! Crossing the small Onetahuti inlet (which never really gets more than waist deep anyway) would definitely be much easier in daylight than in the torch light we wound up crossing it under!
Having read the weather report posted at the Totaranui campsite that we started out from, our smaller group decided to get up early the next morning to hopefully get in some good tramping before it got too hot. This plan failed epically when Emma started showing signs of heat exhaustion only about an hour and a half into the anticipated 7 hours to complete that day. We managed to get Emma very slowly to Bark Bay Hut, where water taxis come in for pick up / drop off and then sat and waited for the other group to turn up. We worked hard at relaxing, cooling and rehydrating Emma, and by the time the rest arrived, she was feeling much better, but still not up to tramping the next 4 hours to our overnight campsite (which was also about the next place we could expect to pick up a water taxi for her!).
So Emma and myself were accompanied by all the group tents and Dani's pack on to Anchorage by water taxi while the rest of the group walked through to Torrent Bay. When they got there it was starting to rain. They helped a guy pack up his tent, and in return got a ride across that estuary rather than having to walk the tidal track around it. In the mean time we had pitched all the tents bar one (someone had forgotten to give us part of it), had a swim and had a nap while a thunderstorm raged above us. Dinner was cooked in the small shelter provided and included fresh soup and bread.
Instead of walking out from Anchorage, we had arranged Sea Kayaks to take us out.
It was a great day, although we all had wicked motion sickness when we got back to Nelson for the night - I clearly remember standing in the shower at Tahunanui Beach Campsite, holding on to the walls so I didnt fall over when I closed my eyes (and can I just say, the showers at that campsite were fantasitc!!). Most of us got at least partly sunburnt that day, and after fish n chips from the camp store for dinner, we all went to bed fairly early, with most people deciding to sleep out of their tents since the weather was so mild.
After all that, the only thing left to do was to catch a taxi, bus and ferry home to Wellington. I think most of us slept most of the way!!
If I was to do this again, I think I would go to Marahau for the night before instead of Kaiteriteri, as then you would have the option of leaving travel stuff at the campground while on track and collecting it on the way out. I have only ever walked the track Totaranui - Marahau, and I think I prefer doing it that way, especially with the days kayaking to finish!
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