Great Walk - Abel Tasman

Now the time had finally come and our Great Walk was about to start. On the evening before, we packed our large backpacks with rice, oats, and everything else we would need for the next few days, and then we set off early in the morning to the departure point of our water taxi. It was supposed to take us to the end of our track so that we could walk back to our car over the next three days. The ride on the water taxi was quite enjoyable and we could already get a first glimpse of our route. In addition to a few seals sunning themselves on the rocks, we also saw beautiful beaches and a dense forest behind them. So we were looking forward to the next few days, even though our enthusiasm for carrying the huge and heavy backpacks was rather low. When we reached our destination beach after a good hour's drive, we set off with great enthusiasm. The first few hours were either along the beach or up and down through the jungle behind it. Around noon, we reached the Awaroa Inlet, a bay that could only be crossed at low tide. For us, this meant that we had to wait here for a few hours until the water was low enough to wade through. When we started the crossing, we had to realize that the water was still quite high, so we had to wade through the freezing cold water in our swimwear to the other shore. By now it was already late afternoon and we still had several kilometers ahead of us to the campsite. Now already quite exhausted, we had to motivate ourselves several times in the last two hours to walk quickly, as it looked like it could start raining at any moment. Luckily, we reached our camping site , the Tonga Quarry Camp, without getting wet and could set up our tent without getting wet and prepare our delicious dry rice for dinner once again. It rained a little during the night, but we stayed dry and thanks to our newly acquired air mattresses, we slept much better than on the Nydia Track. The next morning, we had oats with milk powder milk and a coffee for breakfast, and then we started the next 17km already. The landscape didn't change much anymore, but it remained simply beautiful. We walked along golden beaches by turquoise blue water or had great views of lonely bays and beaches from the hills behind. We spent our lunch break on the beach and Toni even jumped into the water to cool off before we crossed another bay at low tide, this time with the water only a few centimeters high. After another half an hour, we had already reached our campsite in Anchorage, which was not directly located on the beach this time but offered a bit more infrastructure. Before we had our dry rice for dinner again, we jumped into the sea once more and then fell asleep satisfied. However, the next morning we were relieved that we had almost made it and could sleep in our own bed again that night. We covered the last 15km in bright sunshine and when we finally reached our car around noon, we were mighty proud and exhausted. We then stowed our tent deep in the depths of our car so that we wouldn't be tempted to use it again anytime soon.

Side note: There are nine Great Walks in New Zealand. These are multi-day hikes through the most beautiful landscapes of New Zealand (e.g. also through the Fjordland), which can be done either with a tent or in huts. During the Great Walk season, these overnight stays have to be booked well in advance and the hut spots in particular are often fully booked months in advance. For this reason, we were forced to do it with a tent, because otherwise you have hardly any chance to do a Great Walk, unless you book it half a year in advance. An overnight stay in a tent costs $14 per person, and in a hut $32 per person. This makes the whole experience not exactly cheap, so we decided to stick to this one walk ;)