Queen Charlotte Track

On Sunday 27. March Sylvain, Mael, Isilde, Amelie and I left Dunedin in the early morning hours and embarked on our road-trip to Picton to do the legendary Queen Charlotte Track. The drive itself was with about 9 hours of driving one of the longest I´ve done here in New Zealand so far. But State Highway 1, the main road north, is most certainly one of the most beautiful roads in this country.

State Highway Number 1 between Kaikoura and Picton.

We arrived in Picton at around 7 pm and set up our tents at a DOC campsite. The next morning we got up early and made our way to Picton Harbor to take the water-taxi to Shipcove, the starting point of the Queen Charlotte Track.

Picton Harbor

View of the Queen Charlotte Sound from the water-taxi. This is basically the same way as the Interislander ferry takes.

The 71 km long Queen Charlotte track leads through lush rain-forest for most of the time.

View onto the Queen Charlotte Sound from a viewpoint on the track. 

The track leads along countless beautiful sidearms, inlets and bays of the main sound.

Eatwell-lookout: probably the most astonishing lookout point of the whole track! Absolutely staggering view onto the Queen Charlotte Sound.

Morning-atmosphere in the woods along the track on day 2.

After we climbed up to around 400 meters of altitude we escaped the morning-mist that had invaded the sounds in the early morning hours.

The mist soon vanished and left us with some awesome views.

Our constant companions along the way: the weka birds. The weka is a large, brown flightless bird that has a famously feisty and curious personality. These two qualities apparently made the bird an easy food source for Māori and early European settlers.

The last remnants of the morning mist on an otherwise perfectly beautiful day.

While the track sometimes leads along the mountain ridge with staggering views onto the sound, it also has long sections along the coastline directly down at the waterfront.

Crossing a farmer´s land and encountering some of New Zealand´s most famous animals: 

Time to take a short break and have some snacks to invigorate ourselves at this marvelous lookout-point.

Mushrooms along the way

After three days of hiking with an average of 25 km a day I can say that the track was a great success and definitely one of the tracks with the most beautiful lookout points. Most certainly worth a visit!

A big thank you for the amazing pictures to my dear friend and former flatmate Sylvain Letailleur!