Queen Charlotte Track

First full day on the South Island, first rainy day of my travel🤔 But that did not matter that much, it was not raining the whole day either. At 8:00 am I took a boat to Ship Cove, a place in the Queen Charlotte Sound where James Cook once landed and where nowadays the Queen Charlotte Track starts. The whole track takes about four to five days, I only did the first 18 km to Furneaux Lodge. Nathalie, a German historian, was on the same boat as I was, and we found out that we had the same plan for the day, so, wie did the hike together. Just, when we arrived at Ship Cove it started raining. Since the track begins in the forest, that was anyway not too bad. In the forest we saw quite a few Weekas(?), another kind of flightless New Zealand birds. The forest is a little different from those I had been on North Island, but also beautiful. I think, what makes the New Zealand forests so special to me are the ferns. From time to time we had nice views on the Queen Charlotte Sound; well, in the beginning not so nice because of the rain and the clouds. However, after an hour or so the rain stopped and we had a mix of sun and clouds. We had a break in a bay, and then, we had too speed up a bit because both of us had thought that it would be only 14 km too Furneaux Lodge, not 18. Anyway, the trail was not so difficult, so it was not a problem. The mix of forest and the views on the sound make the Queen Charlotte Track pretty nice, but I am not sure if I wanted to do the entire trail. However, this one day was definitely worth it😊At 3 pm the boat picked us up at Furneaux lodge. It had some other pickups, so we had a nice boat trip through the Sound as well. And then, shortly before Picton there was a big school of dolphins. It was so amazing to watch them😁 The skipper even turned and slowed the boat down to see them better. I think, I have never seen so many dolphins at once (maybe in Florida, when I was ten or so). What a great end of the trip and the highlight of the day!Read more