Abel Tasman Day 2:
A Mouse in My House

I woke up with a mouse in my bed this morning.

The unfortunate thing about shared rooms is you don’t always get the ideal roommate. Sometimes that roommate is a mouse. Sometimes that roommate is a man tossing and turning and clapping and slamming his hands on the mattress making you think he must either be having night terrors or be trying to wrestle his mattress. Sometimes, you have both of those roommates and only get 2 hours of sleep as a result.

During the night, I heard my pack resting against my bed rustle. Thinking it was my camelback shifting from the water I didn’t pay much attention. The next morning, I noticed something very warm tucked into my neck. A little brown mouse scampered its way up my pack and into my bed, curling up in a ball and nestling into my neck. If I wasn’t so exhausted, it would almost be cute. But it startled me so much that I screamed, terrifying the fleeing mouse and waking up everyone in my room, who probably wanted to kill me after having been kept up all night by our bed-wrestling friend.

I told Fletcher and the Aussies the story the next morning.

“I always thought that was an old wives tale. I’ve never heard of it actually happening,“ he quipped.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“Our camp guides growing up would tell us not to eat lollies before bed or else the mice will climb into your bed and eat the lolly bits from your teeth. It was a story they told to stop kids from sneaking sweets at night – I’ve never heard of anyone actually finding a mouse in their bed.”

Comforting to know that it’s rare and just my dumb luck.

The mouse would end up being the closest thing to a highlight that I had on the second day.

Immediately after putting on my pack, my shoulders and neck were killing me. My lower back was bruised from the weight of the pack. I was sunburnt from falling asleep on the beach the day before, exhausted and anxious from a terrible night’s sleep, and my toenails are totally destroyed from the steep downhill walk to the beach. To top it all off, I didn’t bring any coffee with me (Nintendo Switch instead of a stove), and I had a terrible caffeine headache that just wouldn’t let up.

In summary, I didn’t feel great.

I started to question why I even decided to do this in the first place. There are other ways to challenge yourself. Also, I like the outdoors, but I don’t know that I love the outdoors.

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Early in the day, I took a small detour path that leads to a place called Cleopatra’s Pool. I wish I had some beautiful photos to share, but even early on, I was feeling pretty downhearted and wasn’t too impressed by the view or the extra thirty minutes I took to see it. It was beautiful, but I was too tired to be impressed.

I wasn’t doing a very good job of pacing myself either. I jetted through the first half in 2 hours, exhausted and hot and sunburnt. I passed a beach with no shade and thought about stopping for a nap, but having to lay in the scorching sun sounded miserable. I kept going and regretted it as there weren’t nearly as many places to rest as there were on the first leg of the walk.

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For the rest of my hike, I would never pass up an opportunity to rest up.

I knew I needed to slow down, but I was tired and miserable and just wanted to get where I was going. I was in a complete haze, just moving one foot in front of the other, and don’t remember much of the day. The only positive things I remember were finally getting to sit down and eat a meal or snack. That’s all I had to look forward to.

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In the last quarter of the hike, I stopped to sit on a lumpy rock and drink some water. A Swedish man about my age walked by who I recognized as one of the disgruntled people in my bunk the night before. Of course, he looked like he was having the time of his life.

It’s at this point that I remembered that I’m doing an “easy” track – as easy as a multi-day hike can be. I can’t help but think that there is something wrong with me and that I’m weak. Every bad thought made each step I took so much harder.

By the time I got to the Bark Bay Hut around 3 pm, I was burnt out. The bunks in this hut weren’t nearly as nice—2 large rooms with 2 large bunks—7 beds per bunk. Time to get cozy with each other.

I fell asleep in the bunk until around 6 pm, where I was woken up by the smell of food. I got up and ate one of my cold, rehydrated meals, and sat outside to kill time until it was late enough that I could go to bed. I was getting eaten alive by sandflies but was too tired to care. The Swedish man from earlier tried to start a conversation, clearly happy to find someone else traveling solo to talk to, but all I could think about was going to sleep. I felt guilty about the interaction the next day.

This was the shortest, and what should have been easiest, day of the hike, coming in at 11.5 km and taking about 4 hours. If this was grueling, how on earth would I get through the rest of this hike?

Around 8 pm, I went to bed, hearing everyone in the next room chatting and laughing away. My biggest regret on the whole hike was overexerting myself so much that day that I couldn’t partake in the conversations that night. It made me feel very alone, but I’m happy to report that I enjoyed a deep, mouseless night of sleep.