Hunters Hut to Saint Arnauds 

​Day 89. Hunters Hut – Red Hills Hut. 18km. Total 1928km. I wake up pretty often during the night. It’s very windy but in the early morning the day promises to be beautiful again. And so we start to hike again. Uphill. Over the red rocks again. Through riverbeds with red stones. Through some mud….

Mount Rintoul Hut to Hunters Hut 

​Day 87. Mount Rintoul Hut – Mid-Wairoa Hut. 15km. Total 1893km.  It was so warm at night I could even sleep with my sleeping bag open and have some more space for my legs. I also didn’t wake up once at night!  When getting dressed and preparing breakfast I can feel the cold though, it’s…

Holidays in Nelson, Golden Bay, Abel Tasman (Part 3)

​Day 81. Takaka. Wainui. Separation Point.  Our final day together all three of us! We pack up as we stay our last night in a hostel in Takaka.  First we drive to Wainui Falls, an easy hike of 2km leads to the falls, passing over a swingbridge that Coco wanted to cross.  Back at Tata…

​Holidays in Nelson, Golden Bay and Abel Tasman (Part 2)

Day 79. Takaka, Pupu Springs and New Year’s Eve.  Saturday is village market day in Takaka, a small “hippie” town about 30km from Collingwood. Takaka is indeed a nice and arty town, graffiti everywhere and the market has its fair share of hippie clothes, jewellery, incense but also food (German Bratwurst!) and other nice stalls. …

​Holidays in Nelson, Golden Bay and Abel Tasman (part 1)

It’s been amazing so far to meet my friends and spend some holidays from the trail! I decided that I will also take a break from writing long blog posts, rather sharing pictures from the beauty we discovered  Day 76. Nelson.  Peggy is celebrating her 40th birthday and we accompanied her to her birthday present,…

Zero days in Wellington. 

​Day 68-69. Wellington. 0km on trail.  Having 4 nights in Wellington should give me some rest. At least that’s what I thought. But the first night was just after hiking in, the next day I still had to finish the trail and organise quite a lot of things, buy some new/replacement gear… And I still…