The Queen Charlotte Track

Onto the South Island - just. The Queen Charlotte track wanders its way along Queen Charlotte Sound - this is the waterway that the ferries between Wellington and Picton travel down. The whole area is known as the Marlborough Sounds.

This walk was both the longest (44miles in 4 days) and also the easiest of the 4 walks that I did. There were two main reasons that it was easy. The first reason was that most of the climbs were more like gradual inclines - so nothing too steep to contend with. Perhaps the main reason it was easy though was that the water taxi which took me to the start of the walk (a 45 minute journey) also, for free, shipped your rucksack each day from where you were starting to where you were finishing! So all I took with me each day was my camera and a litre or so of water - there were hotel/pubs to stop at for lunch! Definitely a bimble as some might say!

		Two photos at Ship Cove - this is the start of the walk. Captain Cook stopped here a couple of times when he first discovered NZ.
		First real viewpoint on the walk - both taken from the same place - one looking east and one looking west.
		Another view to the left. To the right is my first meeting with a weka. There was no mention of these birds in the walk details so I thought they might be quite unusual and I was capturing something really quite rare on camera! How wrong I was!
		Next morning - two photos from the door of my tent. First is of a flock of free-range sheep and the second is of another of those endangered weka!
		An amusing sign as long as you didn't have to act on it! And a quail.
		Two photos of a silver-eye. Actually, its the same photo - just showing off how much I can chop a photo and things still appear sharp!
		Left photo - cloud descending into the bay. Right photo is from the ferry journey from Wellington to Picton 3 years ago - I suspect these are the same cloud, forming on the right and dying on the left - certainly only a couple of miles between the mountains in these photos.
		View point of the sounds next to the Queen Charlotte - this one is called Kenepuru Sound.
		6 more views - this time back on the Queen Charlotte sound.


		Last two views - at the very end of the Queen Charlotte track.