Our next stop was on the NE tip of the South Island, yes, you guessed it, up and over yet another set of twisty, turny, narrow roads, to Picton on the Queen Charlotte Sound. The NE corner of the island is a maze of sounds, bays, inlets, and islands and some huge proportion of the island’s total shoreline is located up in this area. Picton is a small tourist town, anchored by two ferry companies that operate the passenger/car/truck ferries that cross over to Wellington on the North Island. So you either fly from either island or take one of these ferry lines. I think about 8 huge ferries go into Picton each day. It’s yet another idyllic little town where you can sit at many cafes overlooking the harbor and watch cruise boats, water taxis and ferries go in and out. We were spending the night at a small, dreary motel and so decided to treat ourselves to a dinner out. While eating, we were seated at a table next to a couple of similar age who had just been walking the Queen Charlotte Track, which we were to start the next day. We spent much of dinner chatting with them and found out that they live in Wellington. We mentioned that we had not yet been to Wellington but were planning on visiting in about two weeks. Much to our surprise, they invited us to come stay with them while we are in Wellington, so we will be spending a couple of nights with them next week.

Our dreary little place in Picton.

The Picton wharf.  This is a great little town.

You can see one of the large Wellington ferries coming in.

The next morning, we got on a taxi/cruise boat that delivered people and things to various places along Queen Charlotte Sound, as well as providing a half day cruise for others. They dropped us, and about 8 others, off at Ship Cove, the start of the Queen Charlotte Track. This is a four day hike along the inlets of Queen Charlotte Sound, with virtually no roads to the many holiday houses/B & B’s, resorts and campgrounds along the way. These boats stop at the many wharves of these places, and move hikers’ luggage along the track each day, so that hikers need to carry only day packs. Our first day we hiked for about 4 hours before arriving at Cnoc Na Lear, a B & B with two rooms for guests, right on the track/inlet. We immediately donned swimsuits and plunged into the cold water, after a hot, dry walk earlier. A young lady from California arrived on a boat just as we arrived and she was yet another holiday work visa worker, coming to WOOF at the B & B for one week. The couple in the other room that night was a UK retired finance guy and an American doctor, who lived and worked in NZ during the prior 6 years. She did what she called locums, working as a fill-in doctor for 6 weeks at a time in various places throughout the country. The next morning we packed up our bag and left it for the boat and then headed back out on the trail. We hiked for another 4 hours around Endeavour Inlet to our next and final lodging at Mahana Lodge. This was a just beautiful place and we wished we would have stayed longer. The owners had a separate home and had built a lodge with three bedrooms, a kitchen, dining room and living room a bit up the hill from their house. There was a lovely large lawn with recliners and a fairly sandy beach, along with a hammock and a large vegetable garden. They had a patio covered with a grapevine-wrapped pergola, with picture perfect bunches of black and green grapes hanging above the dining table outside. They served us a wonderful dinner under the grapes, which were also on the table to sample. The salmon had come from the salmon farm in the next inlet and all of the rest of the dinner had come out of their garden. The only other people at dinner where the couple from the B & B the prior night and we enjoyed a long conversation with them over dinner and local wine (we were about 1/2 hour from the Marlborough wine region, from which lovely Sauvignon Blanc, Chardonnay and Pinot Noir come from). Then we all grabbed flashlights and walked up the hill about 50 feet to a stream running behind the lodge. There were glow worms living on the stream banks and we all enjoyed seeing them in this natural habitat.

Our water taxi about to take us to Ship Cove, the start of the Queen Charlotte Track.

The drop off.

That’s our track at the bottom.  We basically went to Camp Bay Campsite.  Actually just a tad further.  The whole track goes on for another two days and many more kilometers.  But as Barb said we only did two days.

A couple of the many beautiful inlets along the track.

Our first night on the track.  This is the view from our front “deeck” at the Cnoc Na Lear, B & B.

Off the next morning.

Mirkwood  🙂

Yawn…. just another beautiful inlet.

Mahana Lodge.  This is the home of the owners/hosts.

The “conservatory” where we had dinner.  Not too shabby.

This is a view from our front porch.  The Mahana Lodge was amazing.  Barb asked if we could just stay there a second night but they were booked.  Bummer.

After making ourselves breakfast in the lodge from all of the homemade goodies, Spencer and I bid adieu to the other lodgers who were continuing up the track, and we went down to the wharf to be picked up by the boat and whisked back to Picton. Our last drop-off spot before Picton was an inlet used by NZ’s Outward Bound group and they often did their solos along the banks of that inlet.

Next stop – wine country!