Road Map

Murchinson – Abel Tasman – Nelson – Kaikoura – Christchurch
8 days – 638km

Let’s remember: the previous article ended on the terrace of a riverside campsite in Murchinson, with a simple but explicit “it’s fantastic”. What’s not so fantastic is waking up under a heavy rain, draining the atmosphere of any trace of cheerfulness. After swallowing a couple of toasts on the porch, I stop off in town to buy a coffee to go, and hit the road. Today’s stage and the following night have no interest other than to bring me physically closer to the starting point of the famous Abel Tasman track. It’s a path along the ocean coast, in the middle of lush forest, one of New Zealand’s iconic Great Walks.

It takes three to five days to complete, depending on your level and choice of stages. Not wanting to be in a rush, and having no more than three days to devote to it anyway, I decided to do only half of the track. Two nights in a hut, with a return by boat from Onetahuti Bay. Curiously, I’m looking forward to these 48 hours of total disconnection in nature, with no network, no Instagram, nothing. It’s been two weeks I am into my solo van trip. We can’t really say my social life is overflowing. And yet. I’m preparing my bag while boiling a couscous with dried fruit. It will be taken in zipped bags, with sandwiches, so I don’t have to bother with a stove. I hope they’ll not rot on my back.

The path is made of smooth, clear, firm earth, sheltered by tall webbed or deciduous trees. Inside, hundreds of birds are hiding, chirping their round, funny songs. I walk without music, listening to the sound of the wind, the life of the forest and the muffled roar of the ocean rising from the other side of the foliage. It’s not too hot, not too crowded, just perfect. As I walk, I let my thoughts drift, sometimes thinking of nothing. Only my shoulders tugging and that sea roll, rather unusual as a hiking soundtrack. I pause on a sunless beach, only to discover that I haven’t cooked my couscous long enough. It’s too firm. Damn it.

Thus freed from all constraints and projections – I have nothing to do but move forward until I reach my destination – my mind unfurls and welcomes a flood of ideas that make the excitement in my chest grow. Ideas for articles and projects that I hasten to write down so as not to forget them. I’ve been away from France for six months now, my return date is getting closer and with it, the aftermath. It’s slowly taking shape, a little blurred still, but with a few certainties. Such as knowing that I want to work for myself, and that photography, along with writing, will have to be part of the adventure. I feel like I’m reconnecting with the raw energy of my twenties.

I reach Anchorage hut, my first night stage. It stretches its high, light-filled windows and shaded tables along the beach, hidden behind a few groves. I catch up with people I’ve met along the way, chat with my bunkmates, stroll along the water’s edge and read a book in the sun. The atmosphere is fresh and peaceful. Early to bed, I yet spend a chaotic night, interrupted by my roommates going back and forth, and by a chronic inability to get back to sleep after each disturbance.

Nevertheless, I find the energy to set off again the next day, in beautiful bright sun. The path is not very difficult, just a few steep inclines here and there. The turquoise flashes of water are regularly visible between the branches or around a bend of the track. They are a real treat for the eye. I pause for quite a moment on the white sand of Torrent Bay beach, where I swallow a sandwich. After that, the path forks inland, and I won’t see the water again until my evening stop at Bark Bay.

[Incredible fact: I bumped into a friend from Wellington, who was doing Abel Tasman at the same time as me, but in the other direction, without knowing it, of course!]

The Bark Bay hut is slightly set back from the coast. A small, light-green and rather charming building, set in the middle of a clearing. It has two dormitories that I would describe as “old-fashioned”, since they consist of two long bunks where we sleep 7 side by side. One is at ground level, one on the mezzanine, allowing 14 per room. I’m lucky enough to arrive fairly early, so that I can choose my place, close to two “acquaintances” (understand: people who were at the Anchorage hut the night before).
I sleep surprisingly well. When I open my eyes the morning after, it’s barely 7am and yet, some people have already deserted. As for me, there’s no need to hurry: it won’t take more than three hours to reach the bay from which my return boat leaves, booked for mid-afternoon. I had deliberately planned some time to enjoy the sea and beaches. But I realize that I could have made longer stages instead. The level is easy, and I don’t really swim, the water being too cold for my sensitive little body.

To kill time while waiting for the boat, I read, I enjoy nature and I think a lot. Way too much. I’d pictured this nature walk as a sort of retreat to recharge my batteries, but I’ve come out of it more drained than anything else. The end of my road trip is approaching, and with it the end of my stay in New Zealand. I still have a month and a half of discovery ahead, in Australia and Japan, but New Zealand is different. There, I’ve built up a small life, some habits, I’ve worked. I’m not ready for that to stop.
This prospect gives me the urge to measure the progress I’ve made, the effects of change. I want to feel the transformation, I want attacks of awareness that would show me this new reality the travel would have helped me to build. I left home with no precise goal, not knowing what I would find, probably hoping to return with answers to questions I hadn’t raised. With a perfectly clear vision of my being and its trajectory. But it doesn’t work that way.

After a night in Kaiteriteri campsite, which allows me to wash my hair (hallelujah!) and witness a full-scale seagull attack (fortunately, not directed at me), I set off for Nelson. I think back to the maelstrom of strange, complicated and sterile feelings that agitated me yesterday. With a little distance, I realize that I’m chasing a higher level of intellectual understanding, and therefore apparent mastery of things, when I should rather be seeking to deepen my level of sensations. Or maybe I shouldn’t be looking at anything at all. Just let things be and happen. I’m beginning to understand that, in the end, it’s all there. I’m chasing illusions, a need for false reassurance, when everything I need already exists, just within my reach. I feel a little calmer, and animated by a new strength. 

To accompany this sweet revelation, Nelson welcomes me in the smile of a warm sun. I spend part of the day in a pleasant café, the rest strolling through its flower-filled, shady streets. The next morning, as I walk down the street thinking about my future projects, I’m suddenly submerged by emotion. It overwhelms me to think of them not as distant, unattainable dreams, but as concrete prospects. It overwhelms me to believe in them and to think about them with such natural determination. I reach my van sniffling, and once behind the wheel, I’m sobbing for good. The intensity, beauty and surprise of these five months strike me with a mixture of sadness and gratitude, and even though I still have a week to go before I leave New Zealand for good, I realize that the goodbyes might begin now.

On my way to Blenheim, I make an unscheduled stop in Havelock, the capital of the green mussel. It’s one of the island’s specialties, and I’ve been looking for it everywhere. I definitely can’t miss this unique opportunity to try it. I stick to the classic parsley/white wine mix, accompanied by a large portion of French fries. The weather is gray and a little windy.

Blenheim turns out to be boring as hell. The main reason for coming here is to visit the vineyards and taste  the local wines. But as I hadn’t anticipated this activity and I wasn’t in the mood anyway (I spent about half the trip trying to follow the road through the blur of my wet eyes), I continue on to Kaikoura. Despite the heavy skies, the road is beautiful, picturesque and sublimated by a constantly changing nature. You’d think, reading my articles, that it’s always quite the same: beautifully rounded hills, mountains bristling on the horizon, meadows, ocean, dense green rainforest. But it’s all just a succession of variations that often leave you gobsmacked, always wanting to pull off to the side of the road to enter the scenery and photograph it from every angle.

In Kaikoura, I find a small family campsite just next to the airfield, where I’ve booked a whale-watching flight for the next day. I sleep listening to the sound of the sea, until I’m awaken at 2:30 am by a hellish storm that shakes the van and sends angry sand against its windows. Thank God I’m not in a tent.

The sky is still gray when I get up the next morning. Fortunately, the wind has died and it’s not raining: the flight goes ahead. We overlook the bay, then the ocean, circling gently until we finally see the animal. I can admit it now, I would have preferred to be on a boat. From above, the whale looks small, and there’s nothing else to make you feel it: neither the spray, nor the sound of the water and its body emerging from its depths.

I compensate in the afternoon with a long walk along the rocky ridges of the peninsula. There you can get closer to the colonies of sea lions. I see dozens of them, huge or tiny, sleeping close to their mothers. Some stand on their feet, others play in pools of salt water. I track birds as if I were a wildlife reporter. I shoot almost an entire roll of film. 

After Kaikoura, I go back to Christchurch to drop off the van, returning to my initial state of traveler. One bag in front, one bag behind. I take an early flight to Wellington the next day. I hadn’t planned to come back, but I do. Just for a short night, I rediscover the familiarity of the neighborhoods, streets, places and people. A last coffee at Customs Brew, a last drink at Rosella’s, a last crossing of Cuba St., a last hug with one of my best friends, who’s still there for a few weeks.
On the bus back to Auckland, I spend long hours making little videos of my trip to the South Island. Little capsules of memories. When I’m not doing that, I’m watching the landscape through the window, and with it everything I’m leaving here, everything I’m taking with me. I’m a pain, restless, going from euphoria to sorrow in a matter of seconds. Tears overwhelm me, and I do nothing to stop them from flowing quietly. A father and his little boy watch me discreetly from the other row. They end up offering me a box of Pringles and a brick of chocolate milk, asking if I’m all right. When they leave, they wish me a safe travel. This attention warms my heart, and makes me cry harder.

I’m spending my very last night at my favorite hostel, Verandahs Parkside, a large and cosy house overlooking a beautiful garden near Ponsonby Rd. This is the third time I’m visiting this place, and I’m delighted to be enjoying my ultimate evening there.

As I now sit on the train to the airport – the same one that brought me to Auckland in September, shrivelled with fear, prostrate and lost – I feel vast. Enriched. Augmented. An indescribable sensation, as if a new space had opened up inside me, to contain all that seemed impossible to circumscribe or to make conscious. I feel infinity, a wave of deep, boundless love and gratitude. I understand now when people say that love multiplies, that it can take many forms, that there’s always room in a heart for someone or something else. It’s time for me to go. My heart is so full I’m almost trembling.

[To read the previous article telling adventures of my New Zealand’s South Island road trip, head over here!]

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Listen to accompany the reading