November 14: Queen Charlotte Track - Ship Cove to Endeavour Inlet

Our first day on the Queen Charlotte Track started early with a 7:00 am pickup to take us to the Picton waterfront, followed by a 30 minute briefing on the route we would be walking over the next 4 days. We boarded the water taxi at 8:00 am for the journey to Ship Cove, an historic New Zealand landmark, as it’s where the English explorer Captain James Cook landed on his first and subsequent visits to these islands.

Today’s hike was 10.5 miles with 1800+ feet of elevation gain. The track surface here is quite different from the Abel Tasman, which was relatively smooth packed sandy soil. In contrast, the Queen Charlotte track is on very rocky, heavy clay soil, making the walking a bit more treacherous. Add to that heavy rain for the first 2.5 hours of our hike and it was somewhat slow going (thank goodness our rain gear kept us dry although our boots ended up quite muddy). 

The last 3 hours of our hike were dry and warm enough that we shed our rain jackets, but kept our rain pants on in case the skies opened up again. Which they did, right after we checked into our accommodations. It’s been an outright deluge ever since. I can only imagine what the track will be like in the morning. Rain is in the forecast for tomorrow and Saturday. Wish us luck! 

Our first view of Resolution Bay 









He doesn’t look too happy, does he?
I had asked him if he was enjoying 
his birthday trip and you can see
the answer I got!

We saw a number of small waterfalls today,
but this one was the most picturesque 


I learned today that what I called giant
ferns are actually called “tree ferns”






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