Day 71 – Havelock to Anakiwa

Leaving Havelock, the trail continues on road, but today it left the highway for a wonderfully scenic road curving around the hills above Pelorus Sound and the Mahakiwa Arm. I really enjoyed the walking and the weather was great. I munched apples as I walked and for lunch had some cheese and bread from the bakery in Havelock. I was deliberately low on supplies, figuring to save on weight and stock up in Anakiwa. As I approached Anakiwa towards the end of the day, a beautiful new walkway appeared alongside the road, cut deeply and recently into the bank so that walkers need not even see the road. Following this trail along the south end of Queen Charlotte Sound, I kept waiting for a town center to appear. I passed a group of kids doing trust falls and swim practice – there’s a big Outward Bound Center here – but I reached the trailhead for the Queen Charlotte Walkway and still there was no store of any kind, or any town center to speak of.

I hesitated. To embark on the three-day Queen Charlotte Track with no food left but a hunk of bread and a candy bar seemed ridiculous. However, this is not your typical backcountry trek. All up the Queen Charlotte Sound are small settlements and resorts, and according to what I had read there would be opporunities to walk a few minutes off the trail to a cafe or shop. So I crossed my fingers and stepped onto the track, hoping that I really would be able to resupply along the way.

I only had to walk about an hour until I came to the first campground, which was a nicely maintained DoC site. I suspect it was located so close to town specifically to prevent illegitimate camping on Anakiwa’s beach by those who finished the walkway going south but did not to pay for accomodation.

Despite my food issues, there was no lack of dinner. Dinner is always the last thing I run out of, since I can only eat at night when I fire up my stove. I cooked the last of my beans and rice, a favorite meal brought over from the States by my friend Suzanne last month. While I ate, a possum repeatedly tried to sneak into the cooking shelter with me. I scared him away with a shout or by stomping on the deck, but he had clearly been emboldened by a run of successful food snatching missions, and he refused to stay away for very long. I made sure to pack my food away carefully, and even so I was awakened by scurrying up a couple times in the night and shouted a couple times until it stopped.