Paul and Cindy, New Zealand 2015: Picton, Anakiwa and the Marlborough Sounds

We continued on the Intercity Bus from Kaikoura up to Picton. Picton is the gateway to the Marlborough Sounds. We rented a car in Picton, stocked up on food and bakery, and drove along the twisty Queen Charlotte Drive until we reached the little village of Anakiwa, where we spent the next four nights at the very nice Anakiwa 401 backpackers lodge.


Dutch Bakerii in Picton

Kiwi children like this little girl in Anakiwa learn to ride a bike by practicing on wooden push bikes

The first day in the Sounds we hiked out onto the Queen Charlotte Track. New Zealand has six "great" tracks, and a number of secondary tracks, all of which are multi-day hiking trails. Queen Charlotte Track is in the second tier. We day-hiked out for two hours, ate lunch at a nice overlook, and hiked back. That night at the backpackers lodge, we met Conor from Montana, who had just completed the full track in three days. We also got to know the lodge pets, including Scruff the dog and Kiwa the cat.

Dead fern tree trunk

A beach-side section of the Queen Charlotte Track

A Bellbird - we saw many of these along the track, and we woke up to their crystal-clear song each morning

Coming off the Queen Charlotte Track near Anakiwa


Scruff

Kiwa - reminded us of our Fred

On our second day in the Sounds we dropped off our new friend Conor in Havelock, leaving him on the road to hitchhike to Nelson and beyond to the Abel Tasman track. We then went down to the wharf in Havelock to start a daylong trip on a mail boat run to the outer Marlborough Sounds.

The Marlborough Sounds have four major fjord-like bays that have hundreds of miles of coastline, and many settlements still don't have road access. For over one hundred years, a boat has brought mail to many of these remote residences and businesses, and the mail boat also takes along paying passengers like us so that people can see the Sounds, see some of the residents and their pets (we saw pet dogs and pet pigs, including a kunekune pig), and hear about the history of the people and places. One fellow we saw is eighty-eight years old, living on his own, and is a fifth-generation owner of his remote house and land. One remote resort has backpacker rooms for $100/night and an even more remote lodge that rents for $1000/night (and has been visited by the owners of Google.) We were also fortunate to see a pod of about fifty common dolphins - a number of them came up to the mail boat and swam alongside us. We found this trip fascinating - highly recommended to anyone who visits the Marlborough region.

On the third day, it was threatening rain, so we did a few short hikes, and then drove down to the Marlborough wine region, about 30 km away. As we dropped out of the hills near the coast, the sun came back out, which made for a nice afternoon for wine tasting at the Framingham winery.