Queen Charlotte Track
I'm on a pretty slow dialup here at the Protage Hotel and Backpackers.
We've completed the 3rd day of the Queen Charlotte track. Today was 25km and I'm knackered. We've now done 51km of the 71km total walk. Tomorrow starts with a 450m climb first thing then mostly downhill after that.
The more we walk the more I seem to recall Stephen and Corrine recommening we don't do this track. There's only so many species of trees in new zealand and we must have seen them all 1000 times over. The track is mainly surrounded by forest for about 98% of the time. Every few kms you get a view of the sounds which are glorious (and would be even more so if the sun was shining, it's been a bit cloudy the last two days).
First day we got a water taxi from pictonat 9am for about an hour to Ship Cove, where Cpt Cook stopped off 5 times during his various visits here and used the place as a bit of a base camp. After a 3 hour walk(supposed to take 5 hours) we arrived at Cnoc na Lear backpackers. Run by a NZ woman and her irish husband, hence the name. Not the finest place by a long way. The other guests had to go through our room to get to their's and there was a building site right next door.
It was a glorious day though and we got a good swim from the wharf and saw a ray swimming up and down the shoreline.
The next morning we stopped in at furneaux lodge for breakfast and went to see a rather weedy waterfall. 3 hours later (again it was supposed to take 5) we were at Mahana Homestead backpackers. Surely the finest backpackers on earth. The welcome from Ann the owner was most hospitable and she arranged to make our breakfast and lunch the next day (for a fee but it was well worth it).
She also made dinner. It was superb and her cooking was a total contrast to our usual pasta and peperoni.
Her husband Jon also let me take a fishing rod and try and catch some supper for the next day's guests. I managed to get 2 spotties (wrasse) and 3 or 4 blue cod. One of the cod was big enough to take home too. Apparently they make good eating. Jamie had a go but you guessed it, nothing.
We saw a couple more rays by the shore too. Killer whales eat them and they head for the shallows when they've been around, which they have.
Anyway. Today was a gruelling slog with a couple of nice view points. Mainly it was trees, trees and more trees. Pretty boring after a while. Only the birds kept our interest.
Anyway we'll get this overwith tomorrow and start heading to Abel Tasman National Park.
We've completed the 3rd day of the Queen Charlotte track. Today was 25km and I'm knackered. We've now done 51km of the 71km total walk. Tomorrow starts with a 450m climb first thing then mostly downhill after that.
The more we walk the more I seem to recall Stephen and Corrine recommening we don't do this track. There's only so many species of trees in new zealand and we must have seen them all 1000 times over. The track is mainly surrounded by forest for about 98% of the time. Every few kms you get a view of the sounds which are glorious (and would be even more so if the sun was shining, it's been a bit cloudy the last two days).
First day we got a water taxi from pictonat 9am for about an hour to Ship Cove, where Cpt Cook stopped off 5 times during his various visits here and used the place as a bit of a base camp. After a 3 hour walk(supposed to take 5 hours) we arrived at Cnoc na Lear backpackers. Run by a NZ woman and her irish husband, hence the name. Not the finest place by a long way. The other guests had to go through our room to get to their's and there was a building site right next door.
It was a glorious day though and we got a good swim from the wharf and saw a ray swimming up and down the shoreline.
The next morning we stopped in at furneaux lodge for breakfast and went to see a rather weedy waterfall. 3 hours later (again it was supposed to take 5) we were at Mahana Homestead backpackers. Surely the finest backpackers on earth. The welcome from Ann the owner was most hospitable and she arranged to make our breakfast and lunch the next day (for a fee but it was well worth it).
She also made dinner. It was superb and her cooking was a total contrast to our usual pasta and peperoni.
Her husband Jon also let me take a fishing rod and try and catch some supper for the next day's guests. I managed to get 2 spotties (wrasse) and 3 or 4 blue cod. One of the cod was big enough to take home too. Apparently they make good eating. Jamie had a go but you guessed it, nothing.
We saw a couple more rays by the shore too. Killer whales eat them and they head for the shallows when they've been around, which they have.
Anyway. Today was a gruelling slog with a couple of nice view points. Mainly it was trees, trees and more trees. Pretty boring after a while. Only the birds kept our interest.
Anyway we'll get this overwith tomorrow and start heading to Abel Tasman National Park.
posted by PeterZ at 10:47 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home