Wednesday 2nd July
We checked out of the hostel, got back in the car and returned to Picton to pick Thomas up from the ferry. Danika and I had met him in Bamber House hostel in Auckland and he had taken the bus from there to Wellington, and got the same boat across the Cook Strait that we had taken earlier in the week.
We picked him up at 12.30 and went back along the Queen Charlotte Road, stopped in Nelson to get a few more things we needed for our trek, and then drove to 'Kanuka Ridge' hostel outside the town of Marahau, the entry point to Abel Tasman NP. Because we had a lot of things to do in Nelson, we were late in arriving at the hostel, and it was dark before we pulled up to the office. The owner showed us to our room and the kitchen and we found that one of our roommates for the night was a German girl called Mareika that we had met the night before in 'The Bug' hostel in Nelson.
I made some chilli and rice for dinner while Tom and Danika packed their bags, and we sat down to our food before doing a bit more preparation ahead of the big trek. I decided to leave most of my packing to the following morning as I can usually get stuff done quicker after a decent sleep. We called it a night at about 22.00 so we could get in a decent few hours sleep before our trek into Abel Tasman the following morning.
