We spent a leisurely morning wandering around Picton before boarding the bus to Kaikoura. Today is cloudy and cold. Picton is a nice little harbour town with plenty of water activities on offer but not a real lot to do when you only have a morning to fill in. Our bus to Kaikoura left around 1pm. It was a nice drive past the grape growing region of Bleinhem and rolling green hills with sheep grazing and then right along the coast to Kaikoura. The female bus driver...

Last day of our walk - 20km covered today and we were pretty pleased to see the end of the tail, the poor old feet were feeling pretty tired and although the scenery has been amazing it was starting to be just another bay in New Zealand. Today the weather hasn't been as great and were lucky not to get wet. We arrived at the end of the trail ahead of schedule and had to wait about an hour for the water taxi back to Picton. Another night at the Villa backpackers t...

Hey Bree where we stayed last night at Punga Lodge the lady at the restaurant told us we'd only just missed Sir Ian Mckellar (from Lord of the Rings) He stayed and dined there recently as they are filming in Wellington. Today was our hard day-24km and a lot of that was up. We were rewarded with some amazing views but still hard work for these old bodies. We were all glad to arrive at the Portage Resort and to be able to have a nice hot shower. Just about to head ...

Day two of our walk and the easiest of the four days, only 12km today so we had a bit of a lie in and didn't leave Furneaux Lodge until after 10am. More beautiful scenery along the trail today. Parts of the trail are quite muddy so you have to watch your step. Tonight's accommodation is at Punga Cove Resort. Our rooms up high and looks out over the water, quite spectacular. We are the only guests here tonight so obviously winter is their slow season. None of us a...

First day of walking toady. We caught a water taxi to Ship Cove the start of the Queen Charlotte Track. This was about an hour trip from Picton so it was about 10.30am by the time we'd checked out the Caption Cook memorial and started walking. The first 45mins was all up but then the track evened out and it was a pleasant 5hr walk to our first nights accommodation at Furneaux Lodge. Really pretty scenery along the way with great views out over beautiful clear wat...