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‘Cheating’Charlotte

There’snoreasontodoit hard, carryingyourownfoodandgear, andsleepingand eating ‘rough’onthe breathtakingQueenCharlotte Track. SarahCatherall takes herfamilyonthe GreatWalkin stylewithgreat food, drinkandconversation.

Mia strides out along the Queen Charlotte Track, her boots scraping over leaves scattered on the trail like confetti. At 15, my youngest daughter is already a seasoned tramper, having completed several multi-day trails – and carried everything, including her tent and gas cooker – as part of the Duke of Edinburgh programme.

When I suggest tramping part of the more than 70-kilometre Queen Charlotte Track for three days over a mutual school, work and university break, Mia, eldest daughter Isabella, 21, and my partner, Steve, are up for it.

But Mia doesn’t really think of our three-day hike as tramping because we are doing it the cheat’s way. As we walk, our bags are being transported by water taxi to Furneaux Lodge, our first stop, 15km away.

‘‘Tramping is when you carry everything you’re going to eat, drink and wear, and you carry your tent too,’’ Mia laughs, picking up the pace as we pant behind.

The rest of us are in trainers rather than tramping boots, reflecting how relaxed we feel about what we hope will be three relatively easy day walks with hot showers and soft beds at the end.

I have walked all or parts of the Queen Charlotte Track more times than I can count. The first time I was Isabella’s age, when I hiked part of it with university friends. Steve has tramped and mountainbiked it several times, while my daughters are first-timers.

It’s one of New Zealand’s most popular Great Walks because it’s easy to get to, particularly from Wellington.

The multi-day walk running the length of the Queen Charlotte Sound is easy to divide into threeor four-day chunks, and you don’t have to rough it in a DOC hut as there is accommodation all along the way.

While Abel Tasman along the coastline gets more glory, I have always preferred Queen Charlotte because you get water views most of the way, and the bush is comparatively quieter, apart from the bird song.

To get here, we fly into Blenheim the night before, shuttle to Picton, and spend a night in a motel so we can make the 9am Cougar Line water taxi through the Marlborough Sounds.

We are dropped off with day packs at Ship Cove/Meretoto, where Captain James Cook and his ship crews landed five times in the 1770s.

From there, we walk up a gentle ascent through majestic native bush – mānuka, kānuka, five finger, and tree ferns – while tūı¯, silvereyes and tomtits sing and chirp happily, and the occasional fantail flitters close by.

At the top, Tawa Saddle is drenched in sunshine, so we stop for water and a snack, as a cheeky weka comes by to say hello. Mountainbikes lie beside the track as their riders sit and munch scroggin.

No-one in my family is complaining, yet. Instead, we are mesmerised by the stunning beauty of the bush and emerald green water spread out below. We are happy that the tracks are virtually empty – it feels like we almost have the place to ourselves.

Up means down, and so we head down the track, eventually snaking along the water’s edge, passing coves and bays. We are lucky with the weather. The cloudless sky is vivid blue, like a sheet of turquoise silk hanging above us, and it is warm enough to walk in shorts and singlets.

A few hours after we set off, we reached Endeavour Inlet and Furneaux Lodge. I was last there for a wedding a decade ago, when I stayed in a cabin with a grass roof – it’s still there, although the grass has faded to a pale green. The lodge has been given a refit since then, and our digs for the night were two contemporary one-bedroom Endeavour units side by side.

It was only day one, so we didn’t feel too tired but the girls headed for the hot tub on the water’s edge while Steve and I went to the bar to secure a seat. Bars and restaurants like this one remind me of country taverns in England. Everyone is on a first name basis, antler heads jut off the walls, the fire smokes and roars, and coins are lined up at the pool table. We put one there too and, after meals of scotch fillet, and fresh fish and chips, washed down with house wine for the adults, we played a few rounds of pool. When we woke the next morning after a delicious sleep, Endeavour Inlet was calm like a millpond. Day two of our tramp was a relatively short 13km, and it is what you would describe as a gentle hike. Most of the four-hour walk was straightforward, and the water views to our left were gobsmackingly beautiful. Ponga trees hang over the track like umbrellas, fanning upwards towards the sky.

Isabella’s feet were aching as she discovered her trainers were too small, but the rest of us felt great. Walking got us talking – about life, Covid, memories of trips overseas, school and university, and work. For most of the walk, we didn’t have cellphone coverage, so it felt like bonding time. Our second stop, Punga Cove, has the same

Where to stay: furneauxlodge.co.nz; pungalodge.co.nz. Water taxis: pictonwatertaxis.co.nz; cougarline.co.nz. owners as Furneaux Lodge, and they even have the same drinks list in their bars and restaurants, which feels weirdly comforting.

Our two-bedroom chalet was on a meandering path 100 metres up from the restaurant. My calves were aching, so I was pleased I was not in one of the units 500m up on the ridge at the top of the complex.

The Boatshed Cafe is on a jetty, and we enjoyed pizza and fries as the sun set.

‘‘This is better than cooking up a meal on a gas cooker, isn’t it?’’ I ask Mia, who finally looked faintly tired and nodded.

We woke on our third day to a calm, warm morning. Our room had a deck with sweeping water views, interrupted by pongas. As we packed up, we decided to do a day walk and get picked up by a water taxi rather than trying to finish the whole tramp and risk missing our return flight to Wellington.

We had already done our research – the next stretch, from Punga Cove to Mistletoe Bay, was somewhere between 20km and 26km, depending on which guidebook or map you read.

I had walked it before, years ago, and remember it was the least interesting part of Queen Charlotte Track, as well as the most arduous, so I was not too fussed. We had already decided to flag the Mistletoe Bay to Anakiwa final leg of the tramp because we had to return to Wellington – completing half of it feels satisfying enough.

‘‘We’ll come back and do the rest together another time,’’ I tell the girls. Maybe Mia will convince us to tramp the other half the proper way, although, as I sipped my flat white and tucked into a cooked breakfast, maybe not.

Staying safe

New Zealand is under Covid-19 restrictions. Face coverings are mandatory on all flights and public transport. Proof of vaccination may be required in some venues. Follow the instructions at covid19.govt.nz.

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2022-01-17T08:00:00.0000000Z

2022-01-17T08:00:00.0000000Z

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