Queen Charlotte Track

I spent the past three nights on the Queen Charlotte Track in the Marlborough Sound. It's a trail that has camping sites and lodges on it, that runs along the coast and ridge of a strip of land in the Marlborough Sound. It's about 71 km long. I took a ferry out to Endeavour Bay, which is about 4 hours from the start of the track (the ferry people said it was too late in the day for them to go to the very start). From there, it was about 57 km to the end. I got there about 2:30 pm and just hiked around the area, but the next day I only had 12 km to the next lodge so I ran the whole way. It was great to be running again; it's been about a month since I last went running. I think all the hiking I've been doing has gotten my legs in shape. I spent that day lazying around the jacuzzi. The next portion was about 24 km long to a place called Portage. It was pretty cloudy that day, but I made it in just over four hours. Shortly after I got to the lodge, it started drizzling, and it continued all day long well into the next day.
Today I only had 20 km to go to the end. This route is great because you can pay the ferry to take you out to the start and transport your pack to your lodge everyday. Yes, this is what a lazy man does. It was fantastic.
I took the interisland ferry from Picton to Wellington this evening. It was only 2 hours and a half hours to cross Cook's Strait. Now, I'm in the North Island. I'll be in Wellington (the capital) for the next few days. There are a few interesting things going on this weekend. First of all, there is a rugby tournament going on called "seven" which means they have seven people on each side instead of 15 (?). It's made finding accommodations kind of tricky. I will be changing hostels everyday for the next couple days. The tourney goes on Friday through Saturday. Saturday happens to be Chinese New Year, I just read. Sunday is Waitangi Day, which is sort of like their July 4th, except not really. The Treaty of Waitangi is an agreement between the Pakeha (the European settlers) and the Maori, but it's been hotly contested ever since its signing back in 1840. Anyways, I think there will be a bunch of festivities going on. Also, the third leg of the Global Challenge kicks off from Wellington on Sunday, so I will try to catch that as well. That's a big round-the-world yacht race. Anyways, those are my plans. Hopefully the weather will improve because it's been kind of drizzly the past couple of days.

Just another beach at Abel Tasman.

Cleopatra Pools, where you can take a freezing swim to wash off the sweat. Or not.

Torrent Bay as it is filling up. I had hiked across from the right side to the left a couple hours prior to this photo.

Torrent Bay. When it empties out at low tide, you save about 70 minutes of hiking by cutting across the mudflats. The mudflats are littered with empty clam shells from the sandpipers. The low tide leaves the boats all high and dry.

Anchorage Bay at Abel Tasman, where we slept on a houseboat overnight. The biggest boat in the bay is the houseboat.

Seals sunning themselves on the rocks. I forgot to pack my bat. Just kidding...

Three seals saw us and slipped into the water to check us out. They proceeded to scratch their butts at us.

Kayaking in the Tonga Marine Reserve at Abel Tasman National Park. That's a seal doing the backstroke next to us in the water.

Abel Tasman National Park

I'm back in Nelson again, but I spent the past couple nights at Abel Tasman National Park. This is one of the most popular backpacking trails in New Zealand. It's a three to four day hike on the coast with some awesome views of jungle and beach. I signed up for a catered kayak trip to a marine reserve and got to swim around in the freezing water. We had some close encounters with seals that slipped into the water to check us out. It was pretty amazing to be a few feet from them. It was a pretty small group of us (four tandem kayaks). The conditions were perfect. It was really glassy in the morning, and in the afternoon the wind picked up, so we formed a flotilla and put up a sail and held on tightly and sailed into our cove. We had a couple races and our boat won. It didn't hurt that my navigator (steering with pedals) was actually a Canadian from Newfoundland with a season of sea-kayak guiding under her belt.
I got to stay on a houseboat with some guests. It was so different from the Whitsundays, in Australia. We had a nice BBQ and then settled in with warm drinks on the deck talking to Danes, Swiss Germans, Dutch, and a Canadian. It was nice and cool at night so we bundled up below decks under the comforters.
Today I hiked to a couple sights and then on my way out of the park.
Tomorrow I head to Picton and hopefully spend a few nights on the Queen Charlotte Track.

View from Mt. Beasley

Once again Mt. Rollerston in the background and Avalanche Peak to the right of Mt. Rollerston. The traverse continues down the left ridge from Avalanche Peak to Lyell Peak which is near the center of the photo, and then along the ridge all the way to the left of the photo, then zig-zagging along that knife blade ridge toward me. This has been the best hike I've done so far. The views and the exposure and route-finding made it incredibly exciting.

View of Mt. Rollerston from Avalanche Peak

This is supposed to be the best day hike in all of New Zealand according to the Lonely Planet. They have a race called the Avalanche Peak Challenge here every year. The winner usually makes it up in 55 minutes; it took me 90. Oh well. The hike is pretty good, but I ended up doing a traverse along the ridge over to Lyell Peak and Mt. Beasley. It was pretty exposed on this knife ridge, but fortunately there was hardly any wind. And of course, no one on this traverse.

Atop Mt. Aiken (1863 m)

I blazed up this peak from Arthur's Pass. Once again, there was no one else on this trail. From the top, I had a 360 view all around wiith no evidence of human encroachment except for a few buildings in the valley of Arthur's Pass.

Warm in Nelson

After three nights in Arthur's Pass (760 m elevation), I've taken the seven hour trip up to Nelson, which is at the northern coast of the South Island. Arthur's Pass was pretty cold the first night, but there was a toasty coal stove heating the lounge. It's a small village there with one store/gas station and a couple hotels and a couple hostels. I got to do a couple stiff day hikes there, visiting both sides of the valley. The first hike was to Mt. Aiken at 1863 m, then the next day I hit Avalanche Peak (1833 m), Lyell Peak (1828 m), and Mt. Beasley (1836 m). Now my Achille's tendons are paying the price. I was totally inspired by three guys I met the first night. It was cold and rainy, but they had just done a training trail run (25 km up to 1050 m) in preparation for the Coast to Coast challenge, a one-day 255 km race in a few weeks. It's one of those multisport races with trail running, river kayaking (class 2), and road-biking. These guys set off to kayak for five hours the next morning.
Now I'm in Nelson to head to the Abel Tasman National Park, but I still have to figure out what I plan on doing there.

Fern trees in the rainforests next to the glaciers. The silver fern, by the way, is the national symbol for New Zealand. I'm not sure if I've encountered an silver fern during my hikes. I did encounter trees like these in Australia in the Daintree National Park. They tell the tourists that these mighty trees grow about one to three centimeters a year. I don't know if this is true or not, but you can tell the age of the tree by its height. There were signposts showing where the glaciers had receded from 1950 and even 1750. You could tell that the trees in those areas were clearly of limited height, so maybe it's not a bunch of crap they tell the tourists.

Franz Josef Glacier

I hiked up to Robert's Point above Franz Josef. This glacier is actually creeping forward about 1 meter a day. This is right next to a rainforest. There are a million helicopters buzzing around above taking tourist up for a view of the mountains and taking them on jaunts along the glacier.

More sheep we encountered on the bus. Sometimes traffic comes to a complete halt because of grazing animals crossing the roads. I did not encounter a single multi-laned highway in the South Island.

Mt. Aeolus

This was just a 15 minute stop on my bus ride from Queenstown to Fox Glacier, but it was so pretty I had to take a picture.

A rainy day in the Milford Sound. It's supposed to be pretty impressive with the big waterfall. It's a fiord. Whatever.

View from Ben Lomond Peak

This is a peak right behind Queenstown. This view overlooks the town of Queenstown below and the Frankton Arm which is that thin slice of Lake Wakatipu that extends to the right. This lake is huge, by the way. It was hailing and very windy up here. I was wearing shorts. The trail I took comes along the ridge that you see above Queentown, which is the town on the bottom part of the lake. This ridge goes to the bottom left side of the photo. It was really windy and exposed but easily navigable.