We're Back

On Wednesday we took the ferry back across the Cook Straight and we are now on the South Island for good. Wednesday night we spent at a DOC (Department of Conservation) campground outside of Picton (which is where the Ferry lands).
Thursday morning we got up early, rented a tent, and took off for the Queen Charlotte Track. The way the track works is that you take a boat from Picton (41°17'18.41"S, 174° 0'29.73"E) to Ship Cove (41° 5'39.28"S, 174°14'3.22"E) and then walk back towards Picton along the sound until you are picked up and returned to Picton. On Google Earth you can actually see the track. It is the small white line starting from Ship Cove. Instead of just taking a boat to Ship Cove we decided to splurge a bit and go on a "eco-tour" on the way out there. We saw 7 bottle-nosed dolphins which was the closest we have come to seeing whales so far so that was really exciting! The Dolphins were right under the bow of the boat where we were sitting. They were so close we could have grabbed on and gone for a ride but our guide said no (you have to pay extra to go swimming with the dolphins).

After the dolphins we went to Motuara Island (41° 5'40.16"S, 174°16'22.42"E) which is a wildlife (which means birdlife) refuge. DOC has removed all of the vermin from the island and released native birds there. I don't know if we've mentioned it before now but ever since Bill and Jay from Earlham were here Carrie and I have been having tons of fun birding. We've seen 77 species so far since Christmas and this one morning gave us the last 7! We saw 5 King Shags (which basically only live on this rock (41° 4'38.21"S, 174°21'40.10"E) and there are only about 300 of them so that means that we saw 1.67% of these birds), Fluttering Shearwaters, New Zealand South Island Robins (which are really cute and not shy at all. They eat the bugs that our walking disturb so they are often on the path around people), Wekas (which look like ducks without bills and were pretty demanding when it came to our lunch), South Island Bell Birds (which have a gorgeous song!), one Yellow-Crowned Parakeet, and two South Island Saddlebacks (which was amazing because these birds are very rare!). Ok, I know that was a really long and convoluted sentence but I don't feel like going back and rewriting it. Feel free to liberally insert punctuation as you see fit.
This is a weka under our picnic table.

You get the idea how close it was to the camera from this one.


After such a stellar morning it was going to be hard for the next three days of hiking to live up and that proved to be the case. The weather was perfect and the track was beautiful but terribly boring. I don't actually feel like going into all of the details but essentially it was three days of uncomfortable sleeping, long walking, and the same view over and over again. It would have been more fun as a bike ride. Oh well.

Now we are in Nelson couchsurfing here (41°16'40.79"S, 173°17'10.17"E) with a great guy. We will be here tonight and tomorrow night and we'll be leaving Wednesday. We have great internet here so we'll update accordingly. Hope you're all well.

Matt

P.S. I just went and figured out how to insert links to the posts so I hope all the blue text is more helpful than annoying.