The Weka's Final Heist

We wandered down to the DOC hut in the late morning to wait for the tide to surrender the inlet. We were not alone. A small collection of hikers had gathered with the same intention, packs propped against the hut walls, eyes fixed on the retreating waterline with the particular patience of people whose entire day hinges on the rhythm of the moon. Conversation came easily in that shared waiting, the quiet camaraderie of strangers bound by the same obstacle.

Even before the waters had fully receded, pairs of hikers began to venture out, wading into the Awaroa Inlet with packs hoisted high and legs pushing through thigh-deep water that still claimed the crossing. We watched them go, their figures growing smaller against the vast tidal flat, and decided to wait just a little longer. A few more minutes of patience for a few fewer inches of water seemed a reasonable exchange.

When we finally stepped out onto the inlet, we went in our camp shoes, a calculated decision to keep our hiking boots dry for the trail ahead. It worked, for a time. The first stretch was firm enough, the water cool around our ankles, the footing manageable. But the Awaroa Inlet had other ideas. Deeper in, where the tidal mud lay thick and glutinous beneath the shallow water, the sticky bottom began to claim our footwear with a slow, sucking grip that was almost comical in its persistence. One step, the shoe held. Next step, the foot came free but the shoe did not, swallowed into the grey ooze as though the inlet had decided to collect a toll. We wrestled them free, lost them again, and finally accepted what the mud had been trying to tell us from the start. Bare feet it would have to be. We stuffed the camp shoes into our packs and walked the rest of the crossing with nothing between our soles and the cold, silky mud, feeling every ripple and shell and stone with an intimacy that shoes would never have allowed.

We made it across to the other side, found a patch of grass at the water's edge, and washed and dried our feet as best we could before lacing our hiking boots back on. The inlet was behind us. The trail ahead.

With the rain of the previous day gone, the Abel Tasman had remembered what it did best. The coastal views returned in full glory, those turquoise bays appearing through gaps in the bush like windows into another world, the water so clear and vivid it seemed almost luminous against the deep green of the surrounding forest. And with the views came the hills, rising and falling along the coastline in that relentless rhythm the trail had established. But something had shifted. Anth was slowly getting the hang of them. The soreness was still present, lodged in his calves and the small of his back, but it had softened from sharp protest to dull conversation, his body adapting by degrees to the daily demands of pack and gradient. Torrin, meanwhile, could have been out for a Sunday stroll. He moved with the effortless fluidity of a body that had long since made its peace with uphills, his breathing barely changing on the climbs, still letting Anth lead the way up and offering quiet encouragement from behind when the legs complained loudest.

We stopped several times for short breaks, dropping packs and stretching out on whatever flat ground presented itself, sharing water and trail mix and the easy silence of two people who no longer need to fill every pause with words. The kilometres unfolded beneath us, and eventually the bush opened out onto the large camping area of Totaranui.

Totaranui was a different world from the quiet trail camps we had grown accustomed to over the past few days. Nestled at the head of a sweeping golden bay, this was one of the Abel Tasman's most accessible spots, reachable by road, and it showed. Vans and cars were parked along the edges, families spread across the grass with the comfortable sprawl of people who had driven their supplies in rather than carried them. Children ran between sites, the smell of barbecues drifted on the afternoon air, and the general atmosphere was one of holiday rather than hiking. It was pleasant enough, but after days of earning each campsite with blistered feet and aching shoulders, the energy felt jarring.

We would catch the ferry back from here tomorrow, but for now the afternoon was still young and the idea of spending the night amidst the bustle held little appeal. So we made the decision to walk an extra hour north to Anapai Bay, a smaller, more remote campsite tucked into its own sheltered cove that promised beachside camping and, crucially, quiet. It meant another tidal crossing, a shorter one this time, navigated at low tide with the confidence of people who had now learned what the mud could do. We kept our boots on and picked our line carefully, and the inlet let us pass without incident.

Anapai Bay proved our decision the correct one the moment we arrived. The campsite sat right on the beach, a crescent of sand backed by coastal bush, with only a handful of other tents dotting the clearing. After the bustle of Totaranui, the stillness here felt almost luxurious. The bay curved away in both directions, the water shifting through shades of green and blue as the afternoon light moved across it, and the bush behind us was alive with birdsong.

We set up the tent, then hung our packs in the trees, a precaution born of hard experience. The weka of the Abel Tasman had proven themselves relentless and inventive thieves across every campsite we had visited, from the protein bar heist at Bark Bay to their persistent patrols at Anchorage, and we were not about to offer them another opportunity. Packs aloft, zips secured, we walked along the beach to explore the area, the sand firm and cool underfoot, the headlands at each end of the bay rising like green sentinels above the water.

As the sun began its slow descent toward the horizon, the sandflies that had been our constant companions through the day quietly clocked off and handed their shift to the mosquitoes, who arrived with the fading light and a renewed enthusiasm for exposed skin. We retreated to the tent, zipping the mesh closed against the evening's tiny predators, and lay there listening as the ocean took over. The sound of waves folding against the shore, that ancient, unhurried rhythm, filled the small space around us and carried us gently toward sleep. It was the kind of night where the world outside the tent feels both vast and perfectly contained, and falling asleep to the voice of the sea felt like a privilege the trail had quietly arranged.

The next morning, Anth awoke just in time. Some instinct, perhaps the subtle change in light through the tent fabric, pulled him from sleep in that last breath before dawn. He unzipped the fly and stepped out onto the sand, and there it was. The sunrise, breaking over the ocean in a slow, spreading blaze of gold and pink, the water catching the light and scattering it across the bay in a thousand shifting fragments. The headlands stood in dark silhouette against the brightening sky, and for a few minutes the entire world seemed to hold still, as though the morning itself was pausing to admire what it had made. Anth stood alone on the beach and watched it happen, one of those moments that trail life delivers without warning and that no photograph ever quite captures. The kind of moment you carry in your chest long after the colours have faded.

The other campers slowly packed and departed through the morning, their tents disappearing one by one until the bay felt almost entirely ours. With the ferry booked for mid-afternoon back at Totaranui, we were in no hurry. We moved through the morning at the pace of people with nowhere pressing to be, savouring the last hours of the Abel Tasman in the way you savour the final pages of a book you are not ready to finish.

Finally packed and ready to leave, Anth reached for his wireless headphones. They had been right there, he was certain of it, tucked into the side pocket where they always lived. But the pocket was empty. He checked the tent site, the grass around it, the sand where he had sat watching the sunrise. Nothing. The realisation arrived with a mixture of disbelief and reluctant admiration. A weka. It had to be. Those bold, brown, endlessly opportunistic birds had struck again, this time with a theft so clean and silent it might have happened while we slept. After a thorough search of the campsite, turning over every possibility, we resigned ourselves to the truth. Nature had claimed them. Somewhere in the coastal bush of Anapai Bay, a weka was sitting on a pair of wireless headphones it would never learn to use, and there was nothing to be done about it but laugh.

We shouldered our packs and headed back along the trail to Totaranui to await the ferry, lighter by one pair of headphones and richer by one more story the weka had written for us.Read more