Queen Charlotte Track
New Zealand has embraced hiking and backpacking fully, to our great delight. The Department of Conservation (DOC) has developed and maintained many tracks on Crown land and in National Parks. There are a few tracks that cross private lands too. A total of 950 huts service these tracks and there is a whole tourist industry that supports visitors who want to hike the tracks. One of the newer tracks is the Queen Charlotte Track, a well-established trail covering 70 km of trails in native forest on the ridge between Queen Charlotte Sound and Kenepuru Sound in the Marlborough Sounds area.
This route was not in our original plans. Another Great Tramp on the North Island had been planned but the weather forecast sent us south to sunnier areas so we settled on a day of hiking and a day of paddling in the Marlborough Sounds. Our hike started at the end of the track at Anaikwa and we hiked out and back on the trail.
From a viewpoint at our turn-around point, we could see down the Sound west to Anaikwa.
From the same viewpoint we could see down the Sound to the east, past the entrance to Picton Harbour. This is the route the Interisland Ferry takes.
Native forest of tree ferns, beech, kamahi, rimu, nikau palms, manuka, and kanuka cover the slopes and a variety of ferns and orchids cover the forest floors below. Bellbird and tui could be heard for the whole length of the trail.
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Campsites are spaced along the trail, mostly at beaches. We checked out the site at Davies Bay and wished we were backpacking to camping spots like these ones.
The trail can also be biked and we saw walkers, backpackers, and cyclists along the route. We hope to return to backpack the entire route some time in the future.
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