Thursday  4th May
Marahau to Bark Bay Hut (21.8km 7:13 hours including 1:10 hrs stops)

We set off on our next adventure. Four day hike on the Abel Tasman tracK through the national park. Starting at Marahau and finishing at Totaranui via Whariwharangi. Cost to stay in the 3 huts was $182 total. We also purchased 4 x $5 overnight back country hut passes.

We firstly stopped at Abel Tasman water taxis and bought our ticket to be brought back on our fourth day from Totaranui ($47 each) and parked our car in their parking for the time we were away. Always providing great service. Our accommodation last night also let us leave our luggage there free of charge we think. So the laptop and our big bags were left there safe and sound.

Then on our way we went. First was a 15 min walk along the path to the start of the track. Then into the national park we go. Today’s destination was to Bark Bay Hut. This was a double trek as there were no bunks at the first hut stop (Anchorage Hut). As we had already done the Marahau to Anchorage hut last time we were here we thought that would be fine. Although it did make for a long days hiking (21km). Peace of cake as we had just done a couple of 24km days. Although this time we had to carry our food, cooking equipment, clothes and sleeping bags. A lot tougher hike with a full backpack. All good though, we were up for the new challenge. Off we went.

We saw Tui, seal, robins, sooty pied catchers, fantails and a lot of people. We came across 55 people (48 heading south and 7 heading in our direction). This wasn’t very many as 30,000 people hike the track each year. We walked towards Anchorage Hut which was where we walked from last time we were here. We went out along a side track to the rock at Yellow Point and took a photo out on the rock just for nostalgia. We took the back track which bypassed Anchorage Hut which when I realised we missed the walk down to the hut which was so spectacular I was a little disappointed. But luckily we did this as we just made it to the low tide crossing across the Torrent River. Saying we just made it was exactly that. We had to wade in knee deep water across the bay in a couple of sections and walk quickly to avoid having to hike an extra  90 mins. Luckily we got there then, had we gone to the Hut we would have had to walk the extra. Making our hike over 8 hours and an arrival time of 5.50-6pm. The crossing was quite funny. The rest of the walk was very beautiful. We took a 5 min detour down to Sandfly Bay which was a lot longer than 5 mins and was quite tricky down the rocky path. With a full backpack it changes the dynamics of your walking making it a lot trickier. We finally made it to the hut at about 4.30pm. Most of the beds were already taken.

The hut accommodates 34 people. It was a general purpose room with fire, benches, sink and 3 bedrooms, 6 + 14 + 14 (2 bunks in each room 7 mattresses wide). There is a Ranger who lives there in a hut next door. We chose our bed and unpacked our new sleeping bags. You just put your sleeping bag on a mattress to reserve your bed. We then started preparing dinner and as we had a new cooker, DB tried to gas everyone because he didn’t realise the gas was turned on. The new cooker was great it only took 3.5 mins to boil 2 cups as advertised. We are eating freeze dried food as that is the easiest but it is really quite tasty.

We went to bed at 7.30 and that was really strange. We were woken at midnight by a girl screaming, she must have had a nightmare. I struggled sleeping in my new feather sleeping bag, I spent most of the night just in the liner and then I was still too hot.

It is an interesting group of people – couples, friends, individuals, mother and daughter and a family. Everyone was friendly. A lot were Seasoned trampers, but there were quite a few virgin overnight trampers like us.

It was a great day.