Bark Bay

We woke up to sun hitting our tent. It was breakfast time. And it was here that we realised we had left 500gr of oatflakes and 400gr of milk powder in the hostel in Motueka. We don't know how this could happen. First time for everything we suppose.

And this was not the W Trek. There were no shops and restaurants around here. So, in the face of overwhelming odds, we were left with only one option: we were going to have to science the shit out of this. We had 35gr of sugary cinnamon oatflakes per person per breakfast, which would last us not very long. But by mixing it with water we'd create sugary cinnamon oatmilk. This is high level stuff. Then for this day we could add the banana and apple, and the next two mornings we'd crumble our remaining energy bars into it, plus a handful of nuts, and voilà: we had ourselves a still not filling enough but somewhat mediocre breakfast that could hopefully get us through these mountains without snack breaks.

Not that we believe in God, but it felt like heaven had sent out some local bird to steal a bag of pita bread for us. We asked all other campers around but when none admitted it was theirs, we happily took the few slices of pita bread to add to our diminished stock of food.

The hike was first leading along the beach before going into the jungle again. The weather was great and we came across some very clear rivers. A side trip of a few minutes led us to Cleopatras Pool, a nice natural pool within the river and a natural mossy slide. This made an excellent lunch break spot while watching others going into the cold water and use the partially painful looking slide. We still had 9km to go and continued along Torrent Bay, more jungle, and a hanging bridge above Falls River. We considered trying a swim at Medlands beach but decided to continue to our campsite at Bark Bay, set up our tent, and then try there instead. We first walked along the whole long and nice bay to have a look around and to find the best spot in terms of wind. There was a very clear river entering the sea on the other side of the bay but we eventually ended up walking into the water in front of our tent. Turned out the water was pretty shallow and it would take very long to get anywhere deep. This was probably because it was almost low tide and is probably way better at high tide. We anyways rolled a bit around in the water and then decided to try the shower we spotted on our arrival. Bad timing had it that we had to queue behind 2 other people and the shower gave up before it was our turn. However, their was still a water tap with a bit of an unreliable stream but good enough for us. You can't really expect more when being on a hike in nature.

The campsite was actually located on a bit of a sandbar, in front the beach and sea, behind a lagoon that's filled at high tide. Remarkably, even here the New Zealanders were able to install water toilets and a nice kitchen area with drinkable water. A pretty cool spot to set up your tent and have dinner.Read more