Trackside blog

BY MAIKE VAN DER HEIDE

Day four: Out for a duck by lunch

Marlborough Express reporter MAIKE VAN DER HEIDE's Queen Charlotte Track journey has a sting in its tail.

Good people of Marlborough, be warned: At Davies Bay, ducks and wasps have combined their powers to steal lunch from hapless trampers.

On Friday I stumbled into the bay, feet aching, with the aim of sitting on this picturesque Queen Charlotte Track beach for lunch and a rest. It was day four of my track adventure and my feet had seen better days.

The ducks saw me coming. First, they pretended to be asleep, but they were watching through their feathers. Slowly, quacking quietly, they surrounded me. Two walked in circles around me in opposite directions while several stood behind, far closer than most ducks dare. And then the wasps arrived. I ignored, then swatted, then got up and ran around. Then one wasp got into my hair, two sat on my arm and one got into my sandwich.

That was it. I was outta there. With one hand I grabbed my jersey, with the other my bag. And then – the moment the ducks had been waiting for – I dropped my sandwich. No! One circling duck saw its chance, leaped over my shoe and pecked a big chunk out of my lunch. Success.

This, by far, was the lowest point of the Queen Charlotte Track for me. I had about half an hour to go (though the DOC sign said one hour) and my feet were very, very sore. But I'll admit right now that I cheated on the last day. Shin splints had set in with a vengeance on Thursday's 23km slog, making the downhill bits a tad agonising. So, on arrival at Portage, I made the executive decision to walk Kenepuru Rd to Mistletoe Bay rather than walk over steep Onahau Saddle, which I've done before.

But an hour into my road walk, Te Mahia resident Brian Clark pulled up in his truck and offered me a ride. Which, of course, I accepted. And so it was that I arrived in Mistletoe Bay three hours ahead of schedule and a whole lot happier for it.

The last part of the Queen Charlotte Track is beautiful and makes a good day walk for Marlburians who can get dropped off at Mistletoe Bay.

Aside from aching shins, the last day of the track was as nice as the first. Enjoying it slightly less were Outward Bound participants on the half-marathon that is part of their course.

"My boobs just aren't made for running," I heard one woman comment to nobody in particular before she slogged past.

I hope she didn't stop in Davies Bay – she certainly would have needed her running skills to get out of there.

Day three :

Ladies and gentlemen, I'm back in cellphone land.

I know this because at the Bay of Many Coves shelter, a couple of hours into yesterday's 23-kilometre walk on the Queen Charlotte Track, I was greeted by the distinct sound of an arriving text message.

As I emerged from the bush I saw the shelter was filled with people, many of whom were on the phone or sending messages. One British woman had just found out how her pregnant sister's scan went; others were updating family members.

Some, more sensibly, were enjoying the view.

Since Ship Cove there had been no cellphone reception, a convenience that all except Telecom XT customers had not been without for some time.

I feared turning on my phone. I didn't know if I wanted to deal with whatever real-world information it had to tell me. So I walked on. But about five minutes later I folded: the Nokia welcome tune rang through the bush. Welcome back.

Like me, many of yesterday's walkers, their feet already sore after the trek from Ship Cove, felt some level of trepidation over the route from Punga Cove to Torea Bay.

I was sad to leave Punga Cove Resort where my family suite - yes you read that right - made a fabulous makeshift office with tranquil views over Endeavour Inlet and where chickens and weka socialised on my deck at dusk.

Yesterday's walk was undulating and the contour map on the track brochure had some nasty-looking spikes on it.

But kudos must go to those who built this track. Not only were the spiky bits kept to a minimum, what started as a walk through scrub soon dipped into amazing tall native forest and offered great views over Queen Charlotte Sound to Picton. Some sections also wound to the Kenepuru side, making for a unique route between two Sounds.

Nevertheless, the talk at Black Rock Shelter mid-afternoon was all about how much longer? Between phone calls, of course.

One Aussie man offered his theory that Kiwi miles are longer than international miles, which is why the walk was taking so long. We left him to think about that a bit more.

At the Portage Resort Hotel I was made very welcome by managing director Alison Evans, who said the hotel had recently earned its fourth Qualmark star. The views from my room alone are worth five stars.

Today there are 20km to the end of the track, at Anakiwa. Here's hoping my feet hold out and if not, then rescue is only a cellphone call away.

Day two : Track hero

Queen Charlotte Track is one of Marlborough's most popular tourist destinations but compared to the wineries, museums and even the whales, the track is just that little bit harder to get to.

Laura Gasparini has been walking for about an hour and her feet are beginning to hurt.

Wearing a jacket, scarf, jeans and street shoes, Laura still finds the southerly biting and Portage is still a five hour-walk away.

Her day walk from Punga Cove to Portage isn't looking flash.

So imagine how stoked Laura was when she came across an 81-year-old man on a quad bike being interviewed by a journalist on top of a very high hill.

The young woman from Buenos Aires, Argentina, was now sorted for one of the steepest parts of the track  to Bay of Many Coves. She would hitchhike.

And for Rod Eatwell, the quad bike rider from Kenepuru, meeting nice people like Laura in his "backyard" is one of the reasons he loves maintaining his section of the Queen Charlotte Track.

Rod has erected signs and placed picnic tables at Eatwell Station, near Kenepuru Saddle. He also cleans the loo that he campaigned for, which is quite possibly the country's freshest-smelling long drop. Rod says visitors often leave notes in his donation box complimenting the state of the toilet.

Rod does all this despite being on crutches since seriously hurting himself in a quad bike fall on the track last September. He lay for 11 hours listening to rescue helicopters buzz by but was confident his two Renwick grandsons would eventually find him. He was right.

Rod has been maintaining his section of the track since it opened in 1983. Having bought his 550-hectare property three years previously, Rod thought the whole track idea was not a bad idea and had no qualms about it crossing his land. In fact, he thought it was a bloody good idea: the tops of the steep hills were not much good for anything other than providing good views and Rod liked that his land could contribute to people's enjoyment of the outdoors.

"To me its a luxury to do this and I consider it a privilege," he says.

But it was a commitment that would prove testing when the old park's board pulled funding for track maintenance.

Rod and his family, including his children and grandchildren, took on the job of battling thick gorse that could have easily choked the track. Now, the Department of Conservation maintains the route but Rod makes it even better.

The jewel in Rod's track crown is Eatwells Lookout, a slight detour off the main track that results in awesome views to the outer Queen Charlotte Sound, Endeavour Inlet and on a clear day  which yesterday was not  to the wind turbines at Makara, Wellington. To the south there is a glimpse of Cape Campbell and a clear view of Kenepuru Sound beyond Portage, with the Richmond Ranges on the horizon.

Rod loves the lookout. His most recent addition is a signpost showing which direction major cities are in and their distances, like the signpost at Bluff. His son John, who works in air traffic control, provided his dad with the correct directions and distances but Rod had the mind-boggling task of arranging them all on the exact correct angle on the pole. Rod's next project is another signpost featuring local places.

Laura the Argentinian liked Rod's sign, though Buenos Aires does not feature: Rod left it off at the last minute, he admitted sheepishly. He asked Laura how far she reckoned her home city was from Eatwells Lookout and she guessed 10,000km.

Well, Laura, you were right. According to John's statistics, it is 10,030km away from Eatwells Lookout, a fact that gave Rod Eatwell a good chuckle and another story to add to his treasure chest of good yarns.

 

Day one: a case of mistaken identity

The Queen Charlotte Track is undoubtedly one of Marlborough's most popular tourist destinations but unlike the wineries, the museums and even the whales, the track is just that little bit harder to get to.

There's anarchy on the track as a pair of French tourists sit down to eat lunch.

At the centre of the stoush  a hungry weka. It wants the food the French tourists have. But the tourists first want to know what the weka is.

"Uh, kiwi?" one of them mutters.

"Kiwi?" the other repeats, leaning forward to study the bird more closely. The bird does the same, staring intently in the hope of finding a spare biscuit.

"Weka," I tell them.

"Huh?"

Disappointment is etched on the tourists faces as they realise their holiday shots won't include a real live kiwi after all.

I demonstratively drop my daypack in front of the weka to show the tourists what it will do. Delighted, the weka begins to examine it from all angles, trying to find a way in. It had, after all, nearly succeeded in nicking my lunch five minutes earlier.

Half an hour down the track I find the Frenchmen have taken a weka encounter a step further. They feed it pieces of biscuit from their hands, then hold potato chips for it in their mouths. They are delighted and so is the weka. Harmony reigns on the Queen Charlotte Track.

A day in the life of the track in autumn revealed a large array of fitness levels, from retirees with dual walking sticks to seasoned mountainbikers. It also revealed nobody seems to bother with cumbersome tramping packs, only light day packs. The heavy bags can be transported to lodges along the route, a luxury for most trampers. Most I met were doing a one- or two-day walk; a few were attempting the entire 71-kilometre track in four or five days.

And then there were the mountainbikers in their swish lycra and gloves, pedalling up the huge hill that links Ship Cove to Endeavour Inlet.

Two young Germans looked horrified as they faced the track at Ship Cove. They had expected a flat, polished track, maybe a few trees around it for looks, with some good views thrown in for the photos to send back to mum. They had not expected the vertical monstrosity that loomed before them, all clay and rocks.

"Do not talk to me about that track," one of the young men said more than an hour later as he huffed and puffed past me.

"I thought I was on the wrong track. Oh my God."

Among the walkers were Angela Jolly, from Piha, and her mum Trish Jolly, from Whangamata. Enjoying the view from Tawa Saddle, they had somehow missed Resolution Inlet, their first planned stop, and were trying to figure out how that happened. The pair would walk the track in five days, staying at Furneaux, Punga and two nights at Portage.

Angela was already enjoying the local flora, commenting on the southern rata including one particular specimen that had taken over a huge beech tree.

For Trish, the walk marked the first time she's been back to the Marlborough Sounds since she stayed at the Bay of Many Coves as a child. She said the track was tough at first but manageable.

French tourists Eric Marti and Jerome Spinardi toughed it out to Furneaux where they were rewarded by a huge pod of dolphins that splashed past so loudly that even the staff ran to the shore to see what was going on. The pod raced past, then surrounded a nearby jetty before quietly heading out of the bay.

Eventually the Frenchmen were felled by a huge steak for lunch and had to catch a boat to Punga, rather than walk.

On a three-week tour of New Zealand, they had chosen to spend two days in the Marlborough Sounds, including one day walking and the next boating back to Picton. They had booked everything from France ahead of time and insisted there would be no more tramping  one day was more then enough, they reckoned as they stretched sore legs.

They will return to Picton tomorrow but I will continue on the track to meet one of its most ardent volunteer caretakers: Rod Eatwell. I look forward to seeing the results of years of hard work that Rod has put in for visitors on one of Marlborough's most iconic attractions.

- The Marlborough Express