The days are drawing in with the sun not
getting up until well after 7:30am. We stayed
overnight at my mother’s in Picton so that we could have a leisurely start to our first day. We are doing
what is known as glamping (glamour tramping) where you stay in decent
accommodation and ones bags are transported to each place you stay.
It was decided by unanimous vote that the
best way to start the trip was to get a nice coffee in Picton and sit in the
sun admiring the view of the Sounds from
Le Café which looks down Picton Harbour to the Queen Charlotte Sound or
Totaranui to the Maori.
It was a perfect morning, the sun warming us
as we had our one and only coffee for the day.
For me not a problem but the others tend to have more than one.
We collected our information and lunches
from the organiser of accommodation and transport. Then we were on a fast catamaran down to the
head of the sound. The weather was
perfect with hardly a breeze to disturb the surface of the sea. The sky was blue and the sun shining, yet the
air was still cool. On the way we saw a
pod of bottle-nose dolphins playing around some boats. It was beautiful.
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| Arriving at Ship Cove |
At Ship Cove we spent a good half an hour
looking around and taking photos in front the memorial to Captain James Cook
who used the sheltered bay as a base for his visits to New Zealand. He found a plentiful supply of fresh water,
timber and fish with which to feed and replenish his ships for their ongoing voyages. There was also a grass called scurvy grass
which he used to prevent scurvy on long sea voyages.
The walk out of Ship Cove is quite steep
and it takes about an hour to get to the top where there is a lookout to view
the outer part of Queen Charlotte Sound. The walk through this part is in the original
flora which had been there since Cook’s time. While we were recovering a woman
arrived pushing her bike, which we thought was very sensible given the
steepness of the terrain. We discovered
that she was from Guelph in Canada although she said her home was her
bike. She works planting trees during
the Canadian summer to raise funds and then goes travelling with her bike.
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| Lunch place |
Our lunch was in a very nice little bay called School House Bay in Resolution Bay. Lunch was rather nice with sandwiches, a piece of cake, fruit and water.
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| Looking toward Arapawa Island |
The track then took us past Resolution Bay
cottages and through what had to be private land given the number of gates I
had to open and close. Our next major
stop was Tawa Saddle. This
involved a gradual climb to the saddle.
Throughout the climb there were wonderful views down over the
Sounds, with brilliant weather making the blues of the water very intense.
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| Endeavour Inlet from the track |
We paused for a few minutes at Tawa Saddle to have some
water before we slowly descended into Endeavour Inlet. It took us about two hours to walk from that
point to Furneaux Lodge. It was a very
pretty walk and it was nice and warm.
What we did notice was the number of wasps around. There were lots of poisons to target them as
well. They feed on the honey dew
produced by a scale insect that feeds on the phloem from the beech tree and
because the sap has more sugar than it needs it is secreted as honey dew. The honey dew also provides food for fungi
that covers the beech tree.
It was after 5pm when we arrived at
Furneaux to a very welcome shower, although the same could not be said of the receptionist who was clearly in the wrong job. We celebrated our first day with a glass of wine before having a nice meal at the Lodge. I spent a bit of time watching a Super15 rugby
match while waiting for each course to come much to the disquiet of the
women.
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| Furneaux Lodge |
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