Thirteen Kilometres of Beginning

Simon had delivered us to the start of something new, and now it was time to walk it.

Day one. Thirteen kilometres. Not far by any measure of long-distance hiking, but that was precisely the point. For Anth, whose legs had known nothing but airport terminals and bus seats for the past two days, it was a gentle invitation rather than a demand. For Torrin, eleven days of waiting in Nelson for his father to arrive had softened the hard-won fitness of the North Island, and even a body accustomed to trail life needs a few kilometres to remember itself. This was the distance for finding rhythms again, for settling pack straps into the grooves of shoulders, for letting feet rediscover the language of earth and root and stone.

We walked.

The Abel Tasman unfolded to our right in colours that felt almost implausible. The water sat in shades of turquoise so vivid they seemed borrowed from somewhere tropical, somewhere you would expect palm fronds and coral rather than the dense coastal bush of the South Island's northern edge. We stopped often, not because we needed to but because the beauty insisted upon it. There is a particular freedom in having nowhere urgent to be, in letting a thirteen-kilometre day stretch itself out like a long exhale, and we took full advantage of it. Each clearing in the canopy offered another angle on that impossible water, another bay curving away in a crescent of golden sand, and each time we paused to look, neither of us felt the need to say much. Some things are better absorbed in silence, standing shoulder to shoulder, packs creaking softly as weight shifted.

The trail wound through forest and along coastal edges, the salt air threading itself between the trees, sunlight falling in columns through the canopy above. It was gentle terrain, the kind that lets conversation happen easily, and we talked in the way that people do when they are catching up on the things that phone calls and messages across oceans can never quite carry. The small details. The stories that need footsteps and shared air to be properly told.

Eventually, the bush opened out and Anchorage Bay revealed itself ahead of us, a wide sweep of sand backed by forest, postcard-perfect and, as it turned out, enormously popular. The hut was heaving. The prospect of sharing a single room with twenty-four odd other trampers, their rustling, their snoring, their head torches flicking on in the small hours, held precisely zero appeal. We looked at each other and the decision made itself. We would pitch the tent.

It was here, while setting up camp amidst the bustle of Anchorage, that Torrin introduced Anth to the weka. A sturdy, brown, ground-dwelling bird with an expression of absolute confidence and an appetite for anything left unattended. Native to New Zealand, flightless, and utterly fearless, the weka operates with the bold conviction that whatever you have is rightfully theirs. They circled our campsite with the persistence of seasoned thieves, darting in whenever attention drifted, retreating only to regroup and try again from a different angle. Torrin watched Anth's amused disbelief with the knowing grin of someone who had already learned this lesson the hard way somewhere on the trail.

As the afternoon light began to soften and lengthen, we wandered down the beach to cook our first meal together on trail. The sand was still warm underfoot, and the bay had begun to empty of day visitors, leaving behind a quieter, more intimate version of itself. We set up the stove and unpacked our supplies, and it became immediately, comically apparent that we had overpacked at the Pak'n Save. Simon had driven us to that supermarket only the day before, and in the excitement of stocking up for the trail, enthusiasm had thoroughly outweighed any sensible calculation of what two people could reasonably carry and consume. But if the packs were heavier for it, the dinner was exceptional. We ate well, properly well, the kind of first-night feast that long-distance hikers rarely enjoy but always remember.

The sun dropped behind the headland and the bay dimmed to blues and silvers. We cleaned up carefully, mindful of our weka audience lurking in the fringe of the bush, and made our way back to the tent. Crawling inside, zipping the world out, the fabric walls catching the last of the light, there was a completeness to the moment that settled over everything. The first day of walking together. The first meal cooked on a beach in a country neither of us had explored on foot before. The first night sleeping side by side in a tent on the Abel Tasman, with the sound of small waves folding against the shore and the occasional indignant shuffle of a weka still patrolling for opportunities outside.

Day one, done.Read more