Tramping in style

We’ve just returned from an excellent long weekend of hiking the Queen Charlotte Track in Marlborough Sounds. Well, we didn’t actually do the whole track- in fact, we cut it down to no more than 12 km a day. We slept at lodges or backpackers along the way, and a water taxi delivered our packs each day, so it was very different from any of our other tramps here. However, with my additional frontal load, I wouldn’t exactly call it easy.



Day 1 was definitely the best day. The water taxi dropped us at the start of the track in glorious sunshine. After 2 or 3 hours of walking, we arrived to Resolution Bay (named after James Cook’s ship that first brought him to this part of the world) and settled into an adorable little cabin equipped with a propane stove and candles for the evening. We had a picnic lunch, napped on the dock and then set out kayaking for the afternoon. Just what holidays are meant to be! Our friendly host even brought over some fresh-laid eggs so we were spared our morning porridge the next day.

Day 2 was a bit grey but we still enjoyed the view from our ridge-top walk and some fun encounters with the local wildlife. This cheeky little Weka bird seemed to mistake Mike’s boot laces with some yummy worms and demonstrated that their beaks can pack quite the punch! We arrived mid-day to another backpacker’s at Endeavour Inlet (named after Cpt. Cook’s OTHER ship) where our host greeted us with fresh-baked muffins just as some mist and showers rolled in- much nicer than setting up a wet tent! Later we ventured up to a little waterfall which wasn’t too spectacular but we definitely enjoyed the thick native forest on the way in. Mike climbed and swung on lots of Rata vines, while I struggled to get myself over a heap of them that lay across the path.




Day 3 was decidedly wet. The trail was alsorather uninspiring to begin but it eventually got interesting and Mike got lots of neat wet nature shots… if only we ALL looked so good when soaked to the skin. Happily, the water taxi had done a great job of wrapping up our gear on the jetty to “Noeline’s Homestay” so we arrived to her in very wet and dirty condition, but with many warm and dry supplies. She took us in like any grandmother would … and then proceeded to talk our ears off in the very same style. It was a very relaxing evening, if not a bit less romantic than our candlelit cabin.

The next day we caught the boat back to Picton and spent the afternoon browsing the shops before our ferry ride back to Wellington. It was another wet day so we wasted a couple hours in a pub next to a fire relaxing with a beer (soda water for me!) and playing hangman, which Mike won in round 5 (the “Animal” round) with his African deer species: “ONYX”. I’ve just looked it up and can’t come across it anywhere in the internet dictionaries… suggestions for a suitable punishment for this deception would be much appreciated. The game went a little later than expected (no surprise with a word like “onyx”) and we rushed out to catch our ferry… only to find that the passenger terminal had been moved, thus requiring us to run a few blocks. Not a pretty site for a man with two packs and his pregnant giggling partner struggling to keep up with him! We got there just in time (in true “Oelsner” style, according to Mike).