auckland to havelock

hello again! this post is coming to you from the small town of havelock on the northern fringes of the south island, where we're resting from our recent completion of the queen charlotte track. the current plan is to west through mt richmond forest park to arrive in nelson in about 4 days and then decide if we want to hit up abel tasman or just continue south to kahurangi national park.

i realize that i haven't given you much visual assistance lately, so here's a map that may help a bit. we arrived in picton (northeast side of the map) by ferry, took a water taxi back northeast through the queen charlotte sound, and hiked from there down to havelock, which is disproportionately large on this map. the map-maker must have been a havelockian. so we'll walk west tomorrow to the road bend, where we'll branch off to the west towards nelson. got it? good.

by the way, thanks for continuing to read the blog. some of you are very familiar with the geography that we're referencing, but most of you probably don't know rotorua from lake rotoroa (apparently two very different places), so we appreciate your dedication to following us around. :)

thursday, october 1
i'm going to skip the details about the full day spent on the bus (8am-8pm) from auckland to wellington. we passed some incredible scenery and made plenty of mental notes to return to certain places; i even fancied myself some sort of social scientist or brilliant travel writer and made notes every half hour about what was immediately on my left or my right, but i won't torture you with those. for those of you who are interested, we had rest stops in hamilton, rotorua, and palmerston north, so i have "seen" those places in the most technical sense of the word. for our accomodation on this evening we chose to get our huge hostel experience out of the way and stayed in the 215-bed wellington downtown backpackers, which wasn't as bad as we thought it would be. in my opinion, anything with an on-site bar holds the potential to deliver a night of minimal sleep, so thankfully this was not the case. we saw, unfortunately, none of wellington, but that will certainly be rectified before we leave the country. it is, after all, prime lord of the rings territory. bryan and i admitted to each other that we'd love to join a lord of the rings tour but couldn't possibly bear being "those people".

friday, october 2
nearly missed the shuttle bus to the ferry terminal, as it left earlier than the reception desk at the hostel told us it would, but we were the last ones on the bus and were able to board the 8:30 am ferry across the cook straight to picton. the 3-hour journey was longer than i expected it to be, given the actual distance travelled, but i learned later that this is because of speed restrictions in the sounds. basically, the south island looks like it's been forcibly ripped away from the north island in the marlborough sounds region, as its northern edge is fringed with tendrils of land and little islands. it made for a beautiful boat ride and constant views while we were hiking along it.
once in picton, we arranged for a water taxi to ship cove (the start of the queen charlotte track) and found a couple of empty beds at the villa, where hot apple crisp is served with vanilla ice cream at 8 each night. most of my evening was spent talking with two american girls from south carolina who were gearing up for their hike of the abel tasman coastal track the next day; bryan chose to retreat to the quiet tv lounge for a repeat viewing of prince caspian (still terrible).

saturday, october 3
ship cove to camp bay, 16 miles

hiking the queen charlotte is so wonderful that it feels like we're cheating somehow. in stark contrast to most of our earlier tramping, the track is wide and benched (i swear you could almost push a stroller here), there are always breathtaking panoramic views that seem better each time, and the DOC-owned campsites are plentiful and cheap. though we were the only ones on our water taxi, a full load of day-hikers arrived just moments after us, so we had company for about two-thirds of the way to our campsite. we're finding that there are at least 3 ways to hike the track:

1) thru-hikers (like us), carrying full packs and staying at campsites
2) day-hikers, taking a water taxi both in and out in the same day. these are often families with kids who wouldn't last for more than this 6-hour excursion.
3) hybrid-hikers, planning to complete the whole track but staying in lodges or hostels along the way, their bags being shuttled from stop to stop. met a very nice family from auckland who was doing this with their kids over the school holiday.

i should probably mention for your reference that the entire track is 71 kms (42 miles) long and takes 3-5 days to complete. we stayed this night at camp bay, where our movements were closely followed by a weka, a fat little flightless bird notorious for its attraction to shiny objects.

sunday, october 4
camp bay to camp bay (via mt stokes track) , 8 miles?

took an entire day off the trail to explore the mt stokes track, a 5-hour trip (plus 2 hours each way from our campsite to the trailhead) up to a 1200m summit, 400m higher than our previous record. we met with unexpectedly frigid weather that gnawed through our gloves and bit at our toes, causing us to question at 800m the likelihood of developing hypothermia. it didn't seem like this was a serious risk (we're just wusses after having been so long up in northland), so we donned an extra layer and made it to the top in another 90 minutes, a light covering of snow adding drama to the rocky peak. the track was appreciably straightforward, lacking the downward dips that can be so irritating when you know that your final destination lies upward. returned to camp bay for a second, much chillier, night.

monday, october 5
camp bay to black rock camp, 11 miles

excruciatingly cold. painful. these journal entries were all written at the end of the hike, as my hands refused to linger outside of the sleeping bag for any non-essential functions. somehow the views are still lovely, but the constant rain and wind makes them difficult to be enthusiastic about. shared our lunch spot today with another american couple, he from colorado and she from new york. we spent at least a half hour in conversation but never exchanged names. i think there's just a mutual understanding that knowing each others' names isn't as important as the other information that can be gleaned from an encounter like this one. we learned about the ease of buying a car in nz, how obtaining an IRD is essential for working here, and about the arduous nature of kiwifruit picking, but how would we really benefit from the name exchange? it seems impersonal, but is it? i'm not sure.

overnighted at black rock camp, regrettably a camp high up on the ridgeline, shivering with each new gust of wind.

tuesday, october 6
black rock camp to davies bay, 13.5 miles

mercifully, the sun came out again for our last day on the trail, allowing us to see the snow-tipped peaks of the distant southern alps as we breakfasted in the cooking shelter. found an orange in good condition along the trail and enjoyed it with our lunch. the same thing happened with a lifesaver (individually wrapped, i promise) on saturday - i'm beginning to wonder if someone's trying to lure me away, hansel and gretel-style.

two mountain bikers passed us on the trail today. we think we're kind of hardcore for hiking, but they're really the ones to be impressed by. despite my earlier comments about pushing a stroller on this track, it really is a serious ride.

this evening's camp was at davies bay, a big grassy site next to a bay of genuine postcard-quality aquamarine.

wednesday, october 7
davies bay to havelock, 1.5 miles (+10)

finished the tail end of the trail in 35 minutes and then followed a road, queen charlotte drive, west to havelock. we were hoping to be offered a ride, but this didn't happen until 2 miles from havelock. when the road started winding around a mountainside about 3 miles in, we realized that we'd largely missed our opportunity (there were no spots for a car to pull off) and figured we'd be hoofing it for the rest of the way. bought groceries, pored over maps, used the internet, exchanged books, did laundry, showered...all the usual rest-stop items were taken care of. we'd planned to stay for two nights, but we're really not all that worn out from our tramp and i don't know how we'd possibly fill another day here in havelock. it's cute, but a person can "do" havelock in about an hour.

unfortunately, i've just discovered that the computer i'm using is not planning to allow me to upload pictures from my camera, so i'll have to show you our amazing shots of the queen charlotte and kenepuru sounds at a later date. it's okay - the pictures don't do them justice anyway. sorry for the text-heavy post! let's just consider this an exercise for your imagination. again, we expect to be in nelson in about 4 days (maybe even less?), so it shouldn't be too long. i'm also working on putting pictures on picasa or photobucket for those who are interested in more than the 5 or so pictures that make it on each blog. i'll let you know when that's up.

good night!

-rachel

pictures:
1) map of marlborough sounds region
2) me at the picton harbour wearing my favorite "in town" outfit :) who knew that orange and blue could be so awesome together?
3) one of many marvelous views from the queen charlotte track. this one features the ponga (silver fern) tree, one of new zealand's distinctive symbols, in the foreground.
4) bryan crawling under a fallen tree on the mt stokes track. the picture makes it look like the track here is flat and wide, seeming to suggest that he's crawling under it just for fun, but that was not the case.
5) the snowy view from the top of mt stokes.
6) watching the fog drift out of davies bay in the morning.