Day 108: Awapoto Hut to Marahau (29 km)

Friday, March 17

Logan's and our alarms went off at 6:30. We got ready to go and watched a beautiful sunrise. Logan left before us, so we swept the hut while dancing to Moana songs.

We hit the trail a little after 8 and Sam's legs immediately got covered in seeds. I had downloaded Malala's audiobook before coming to New Zealand, so we listened to it while we hiked. We walked a little slower than normal while we listened, because we were all trying to walk close enough together to hear my phone, but it didn't matter. We had fun listening to it.

We kept following the Inland Trail. It was pretty similarly maintained to the section we walked yesterday. We crossed paths with another hiker who wasn't too social and got to the Moa Park Shelter around noon. It was a pretty icky shelter. Although it looked fine on the outside, the inside walls weren't finished and there were mouse droppings and (I'm assuming mouse) pee in the hut book. But it did have an outhouse close by and would have worked in a bad weather situation.

After a quick rest and some snacking we hit the trail again. The flies were getting a bit annoying so we didn't want to sit around too long.

Last night Logan had told us the Porters Rock Lookout was the best view on the trail and that it put the view from Awapoto Hut to shame. When we saw the turnoff we ditched our packs and hustled down the trail. There was a woman there. She kindly let us climb up the rock and check out the view and told us the trail was all downhill from here.

We could see for mikes and miles, but there were so many clouds below us, they blocked most of what should have been the good view.

We practically jogged back to our packs and continued on the Inland Track to Castle Rock Hut. Earlier in the day we decided we'd try to make it back to Marahau. Originally we'd planned to stay at this hut, but we liked staying at Old MacDonald Holiday Park. It would also make our drive back to Christchurch less stressful tomorrow if we didn't have to spend a few hours hiking in the morning.

I went in to sign the hut book and Sam and Lauren laid on their backs with their feet in the air. That's a good, quick way to make tired hiking feet happy. When I came out of the cabin, we continued walking. A few times we got turned around for a few minutes, but we always eventually found our way back to the trail. At one point Sam broke his hiking pole so I gave him mine to use. I like them more for the uphill parts anyway.

Around 5 pm we got to the Holyoake Shelter. It was really nice with two mattresses and a stainless steel cooking bench. It even had a rainwater tank and a drop toilet. When I signed the hut book I saw the French couple (I just learned that from the hut book) we saw right before Awapoto Hut had stayed there.

As we were sitting and resting our feet, I thought I'd see if I had enough cell phone service to call Old MacDonald Holiday park and make sure we had a place to stay tonight. It worked! They had one three-bed cabin left.

Now we were really motivated to get done with our day's hike, and it was definitely all downhill from here. We were going at a pretty fast clip. Lauren got a two-point fall but she was fine.

The orange markers stopped but the trail was really clear and after some twists and sharp turns my GPS said we had followed the trail exactly. We kept seeing different animal traps hidden a little off the trail so we knew we were following some man-made trail.

After a few more twists and turns we hit the flat Coastal Trail we had started on. We were so excited! Before we knew it we were passing the Tinline Camp and came up to the final boardwalk. There were walkers on the trail and people riding horses on the beach.

We made our goal of reaching the Holiday Park before the office closed, so we bought snacks and beer when we paid for the cabin and the days we had kept the rental car there.

After we moved the car from the locked area to our cabin, we combined all our smelly laundry into a load so we wouldn't need to wash it in Christchurch tomorrow.

We gorged on chips and Tim Tams (I may have gorged a bit more than Lauren and Sam), made our dinners, and switched the laundry to the dryer. We listened to one last chapter from Malala's book, got our laundry, and went to bed. We had a fun few days in Abel Tasman, but we'd hiked a lot over the last few days. It didn't take me long to fall asleep.

Early sunrise.  

Sunrise from Awapoto Hut. 

Lauren on the Inland Trail.  

Sam and I on the Inland Trail.  

The inside of Moa Park Shelter.  

The view from Porters Rock Lookout. We were on top of the clouds!  

Castle Rock Hut

The inside of Castle Rock Hut.  

Sam and Lauren rest their feet outside Castle Rock Shelter.  

Holyoake Shelter.  

Inside Holyoake Shelter.  

Sam and Lauren on the Inland Track.  

Sam on the trail. Look how nice and downhill it is!  

Once we were below the cloud line we could see the beach.  

Lauren and Sam got annoyed with all my picture taking so they showed me their butts. This was what the Inland Trail looked like the last few kilometers before it met the Coastal Track.  

An out-of-focus fantail. They sometimes follow people on trails because their walking kicks up bugs and insects they like to eat (at least that's what I was told by a Kiwi).  

The beach (and the Coastal Track) was getting so close!  

We made it down to the Coastal Track.  

A nice person walking on the trail took our photo near the end/start of the trail.