Day 66 - School Bay Camp

Todays the day I head to the South Island. I have been eagerly anticipating the South Island, more wilderness, less people, and more dramatic landscapes. The first track is the Queen Charolette track on the northern tip of the South Island. This area, called Marborough sounds is a collection of islands, peninsulas, and bays. 1/5th of New Zealand’s total coast line lies in this area. But first to get there. 

I took the morning ferry to the town of Picton on the South Island. Then a second ferry to the trail head. This second ferry was a slight surprise in that I was really just getting a hitch on a mail ferry. We went up and down the coast delivering parcels to homesteads that are water access only. This added 2hrs to my journey which annoyed me at the beginning. However part way through we stumbled upon a pod of Bottlenose dolphins.

The dolphins swam right along our boat, and played in the wake we were creating. We were going 40km/hr, but the dolphins kept up with ease. This made the detour well worth it. 

The start of our track was ship cove. A significant landmark in New Zealand because it was the bay that James Cook often went to when making some of first contact with the new land mass of New Zealand. There’s a giant monument to Cook in the bay. Many things in New Zealand and Australia are named after Captian Cook, including the body of water I just crossed to get in between the two islands; the Cook Strait. 

The first steps onto the South, 1300km ahead of us. 

A new bird for the list, a Weka. Watch out for these pesky flightless birds. They’re known to steal anything they can their bills on from unwary hikers. 

Because I was late I needed to reorganize my days, I could only really make the first campsite a mere 8km away. Easy work. 

Camp was beautiful, and since it was such a hot day I went for a long swim in the ocean. Paradise so far in the south.