A Sound Journey
A Sound Journey
An Englishman, after growing up on the coast of Yorkshire, travels to Canada. A few years later, he goes to Spain, Patagonia, Tahiti, a few other Pacific islands, sails around New Zealand, and through the Great barrier Reef off Australia. He visits the Canary Islands, South Africa, and Indonesia, and finds time for two cruises to Antarctica. He dies in Hawaii, aged 50, on his way to Alaska. He is one of the world's great travellers. But this person is not some modern-day jet setter. He is Captain James Cook, in the 18th Century.
Much is made of Cook, we find, in the Marlborough Sounds, and for good reason. His name is especially prominent at a place he named Ship Cove, off a stretch of water that he named Queen Charlotte Sound. Cook visited Ship Cove five times on three different voyages, staying in total for more than a hundred days. Ship Cove is one of the many places in the world with a memorial to James Cook. There is an informative display incorporating his story into the wider history of the area. It is a tranquil spot on a peaceful bay, surrounded by tall trees, fed by a clear running stream, and it is easy to see why Cook kept coming back.
While on the subject of history, before we visit, I look up Queen Charlotte. She was a princess from an obscure Duchy in Germany, and married King George III of England in 1761. There is a persisting internet myth, which has recently resurfaced, for obvious reasons, that Queen Charlotte was partly descended on her mother's side from a black Portuguese family, predating Megan Markle by more than two centuries as the first person of recent African descent to marry into the British royal family. The couple had fifteen children, including the future George IV, making her a direct ancestor of Queen Elizabeth II and her family. Charlotte among other interests was an enthusiastic amateur botanist. She died in 1818 aged 74, no doubt worn out by her recurrent maternal efforts.
My wife and I, as part of our new-found interest in local tourist activities, decide to have a look at the Queen Charlotte walkway. It is a 73 km walk along the peninsula between Kenepuru and Queen Charlotte Sounds. One of the attractions, apart from the history, the obvious natural beauty, and the chance to get some exercise, is the level of comfort. There is excellent boat access. The boat companies can carry your pack if you want, or allow you to skip some of the more difficult sections. Accommodation and meals are available at a series of resorts along the way, which also provide packed lunches. The easiest way to arrange a holiday is to book a package through one of the companies, which we do through the Marlborough Adventure Company. We are not disappointed.
The boat trip out from Picton provides a preview of the next few days as it cruises up the sound to the start of the walk at Ship Cove. It is also a chance to meet people who may be fellow walkers. I have fun observing them. There is one group of five women who, we tell each other, look like the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, or New York or Auckland, or of any other city you can think of to make a TV programme about. The real housewives on TV are called real housewives because they do not appear to be real. These ones are definitely made of plastic. Especially their faces. Their mouths and eyes move whenever they talk or laugh or shriek, all of which they seem to need to do loudly and often, for no obvious reason, but the rest of their faces remain immobile.
The Housewives wear the latest sports gear, and have bright new day packs to carry, except for one who explains that she couldn't find one that was suitable and has instead borrowed a Kings College school bag from her son. The rest of their gear is stowed in big duffel bags for the crew of the boat to carry. It turns out that the Housewives all go to the same gym together somewhere in Auckland. They are trying to tell me something about the activities they do there. I tell them I have never been in a gym. They look at me blankly, which I realise is their usual way of looking at anybody about anything.
"I guess you could tell that already," I say.
Also on the boat are some blokes with bikes, which are allowed on the track (both the blokes and the bikes) except in the busy summer season. One of the men has a huge heavy pack. This load interests a lovely woman and her lovely husband going to some lodge for a leisurely lunch. The couple mention that their daughter and their lovely son-in-law are away somewhere together doing some multi-day bike track and are carrying a tent.
"Is that a tent?" they ask the man with the big bag.
"No, it's two dozen cans of beer," he replies. "I'm the only one with an e-bike so they gave me the beer to carry."
Those of us starting the track that day get off at Ship Cove. That seems to be the standard spelling, though we have also seen it written as Ship's Cove, or Ships' Cove, or Ships Cove. It is also called Meretoto. Many places along the track have an alternative Māori name. In most cases, I will use the English names, many of which are connected with Cook or other early European explorers and settlers. I could choose to use the Māori names. But that would mean telling a slightly different story. Like much of what James Cook did, the names are likely to remain controversial.
Captain Cook's exploits are arguably less impressive than those of the great Polynesian explorer Kupe, who is said to have voyaged with his family to New Zealand from the Pacific Islands in the 13th Century. Stories of his travels are inconsistent and in print are mainly retold from oral accounts by early European amateur historians. The Marlborough stories have Kupe coming to the sounds area hunting a giant octopus, which he cooked and ate on Arapawa Island. The arms of the octopus are said to have gouged out the landscape of the Marlborough Sounds. This last bit makes sense when you look at the tentacle-like nature of the different bays, and try to make your way around them.
The first day on the track is seventeen kilometres. There is a low saddle to Resolution Bay then another to Endeavour Inlet. Both places are named after Cook's ships. This part of the track is flanked by untouched podocarp forest with big stands of rimu and matai. The trunks in places are entwined with rata, with its scarlet flowers starting to come out. An old man on an e-bike, with a Yorkshire accent (the man, not the bike), catches up with us, struggling to control his passage over the rubbly path. He is from Sheffield, he says, and spent his summer holidays on the coast near Whitby, where James Cook grew up. He goes on ahead, leaving us with the scenery. There are frequent views down to blue-green bays. We are starting to enjoy ourselves. Then it is a trudge along the shore, past a few scattered holiday homes, to Furneaux lodge.
Tobias Furneaux was the Captain of the Adventure, the ship that accompanied Cook's Resolution on his second voyage. Furneaux was already an experienced sailor by that time, having reached Tahiti as one of the crew of the Dolphin three years before Cook. The Resolution and the Adventure first came to the sounds together, then when they became separated exploring Antarctica, and were supposed to meet up again at Ship Cove, but Cook arrived to find that Furneaux had already left. Cook learned more about what had happened to Furneaux and his men much later when he got back to England in the Resolution, and on a subsequent voyage to the sounds.
At a site near Ship Cove just north from the start of our track, in 1773, some men from the Adventure had been set down to gather supplies and had got into a dispute with local Māori over allegations of theft. A large group gathered and threatened to attack the sailors. Two Māori were shot dead with the only two loaded muskets available. The rest of Furneaux's men were easily overpowered, cooked, and eaten. On discovering evidence of what had taken place, and recognising the remaining body parts of his former crew, Furneaux immediately left the area with the rest of his countrymen and returned to England. He went on to fight on the British side in the American War of Independence and died in 1781.
Furneaux was not directly associated with the lodge. It was built in 1904 by a Scotsman called Patrick Howden and was named after Mount Furneaux, which had been given the unfortunate captain's name, and is behind the lodge. Howden lived there with his wife and two daughters, who were somehow able to find husbands somewhere, presumably from one of the nearby towns, and inherited the land. It passed through various hands and was eventually developed as a tourist facility.
The lodge gained a new infamy on New Year's Day 1998. Two young New Zealanders, Ben Smart and Olivia Hope, who were partying there, went missing. They were never found. A local man called Scott Watson was convicted of their murders. Like many high-profile New Zealand murders, the verdict was controversial. Watson was widely disliked, including by the police. Some of the evidence to suggest that he murdered the young couple was inconsistent, perhaps made up. We will never know the true story.
We are directed to our room. It is a level of luxury that we have not previously encountered on New Zealand tramping tracks. Once we have cleaned up, and moved in to the Lodge, we find the bar, and a restaurant. We sit outside, gulping water and sipping on soft drinks. The Housewives sit at a table nearby until well after dark, consuming large quantities of wine. More exercise for their biceps. The Blokes on Bikes are down by the water's edge drinking beer. We make our way inside and order a meal. The Blokes came in and join us at a nearby table, each carrying an unfinished jug of beer, playing pool while waiting for their meals. There is no TV; the pool game is the only live sport on offer. The Blokes play with great confidence but with an inconsistent and deteriorating level of skill.
The next day is only twelve kilometres. Plenty of time for a leisurely cooked breakfast before we set off. The track around the Endeavour inlet is at a low level. But, like other coastal tracks we have experienced, it has some repetitive and annoying up and down sections negotiating a series of headlands. We come across an old school site and an abandoned antimony mine that once exported the raw material directly to England and employed 300 people. At the head of the inlet is the unimaginatively named Big Bay, a low-lying area containing native flax bushes, which at the time we visit are being devoured by noisy bellbirds. On one of the steep bits, we catch up with a group we label as the Struggling Stragglers, who are lightly dressed but well covered, and are clearly having trouble with the effort of movement in the heat of the day. We wonder how they will manage the rest of the walk.
We arrive at Punga Cove Resort in good time, well before our unit is made up. We sit down by the water eating the remains of our packed lunches, most of which we have not needed on the way round. Our unit when it becomes available turns out to be at the top of a steep path. The view from the bedroom is spectacular. There is a small window looking back into the ensuite bathroom. I make my way down for a swim in the sea. Showering afterwards, I discover there is a view from the bathroom, through the window, through the bedroom, across the balcony, down to the bush-fringed cove. It must be one of the most scenic showers in the world.
It is a short trip back down to the water side. We buy a wine and a pizza from a French waiter who has been able to extend his working holiday because of COVID. There is live entertainment from a guitarist who plays and sings—mainly blues numbers. We sit with a North American woman we have met on the track who now lives in Golden Bay. She is scribbling in a notebook. She is a writer, she admits. She has a book being published but doesn't know yet what the name will be. The Housewives are along from us, drinking more wine, enjoying the music. There are a few others who seem to have come out from Picton for the day on a boat.
Everyone is worried about the next day, which is twenty-four kilometres along a ridge, and includes a series of climbs, the first of which is 400 metres. We all set off early. The Real Housewives skip breakfast and get onto the track as soon as the sun comes up; they have become the Desperate Housewives. Two elderly ladies from Palmerston North sensibly elect to do this bit by boat. They have done a lot of walking together before, they say, including this same track. The Struggling Stragglers are nowhere to be seen. I think they made it to Punga Cove. I don't know what happened to them after that.
The views, as promised, are spectacular. The track closely follows the ridge along the top of the peninsula. To the left are the clear blue-green waters of Queen Charlotte Sound, connected to the open sea via the Tory Channel. To the right are the grey-green waters of Kenepuru Sound, a shallow arm of the larger Pelorus Sound, surrounded by farmland. After gaining height, the track mainly sidles around the contours to dodge the remaining small hilltops, with views through the tall trees on the hillsides down to one or other sound.
We are passed by a young couple from Wellington, hurrying to catch a boat and connect with the Cook Strait ferry later this afternoon. Another young couple hurry past, anxious about rain. We learn later that they have pulled out, nervous about the prospect of injuring themselves at the beginning of a planned two-week holiday. We are also passed by an older Dutch couple, but soon catch up with them when the man starts lagging behind. They live in Northland, they tell us later, and are doing the walk as part of a camper van trip around the South Island. The wife is a member of a walking group, which her husband calls the Walkie Talkies, and which he has previously decided is not for him. But this time he has been dragged along.
Near the end of the day, the track drops steeply on slippery rock. It has been raining. We wonder how the bikers are getting on. There is an unhelpful sign at the bottom, but not at the top, advising "beware slippery rock surface". This section of the track ends at the Torea Saddle, the lowest point on the peninsula for some distance, and the place where Māori used to carry their canoes from one sound to the other rather than risk the long and dangerous journey out into the open sea. We follow an incongruous 800 metres of sealed road at the end of the day down to the Portage Hotel, an agreeably old-fashioned place belonging to the Tourist Hotel Corporation.
We settle into the level of comfort to which we have been become accustomed, including eating steak and fish in a pleasant restaurant overlooking pockets of farmland and the still waters of Kenepuru Sound. We are joined by the Yorkshireman, who tells us horror stories of trying to negotiate the wet downhill part of the track on his heavy e-bike, unsuccessfully using his brakes to slow himself down and on more than one occasion flying over the handlebars when his front wheel jammed. We go off to bed, feeling lucky to have chosen a safe method of getting from one end of the track to the other.
The last day is twenty kilometres. At breakfast, the Housewives are limbering up in preparation for some strenuous total-body exercise. Everyone feels a bit of time pressure: the boat to Picton is at three o'clock but it can leave early if all passengers have arrived and are ready to go. There are some low hills to climb at the start, but with excellent views, in both directions at once, coming down to the halfway point for the day at Mahia Saddle. From here the track becomes easier, especially for mountain bikers, up from Mistletoe Bay and down to Anakiwa.
The bikers are a socially competitive lot, even the couples. One, who comes through ahead of his partner, describes her as "pretty slow". Another describes his partner as "useless" and says she "can't keep up". When the long-suffering woman comes through, she complains he "won't wait". The other people who stand out on the track are a few young trampers going the other way heavily laden with huge packs. It turns out they are Te Araroa walkers, who have started in Bluff. For them, this is the last short section of their long journey from one end of the South Island to the other. They are planning to do the North Island next. Their trail will end where our trip started, at Ship Cove, which is not the most northern point in the South Island but is much further north than Wellington, where they will start the first of the North Island sections.
We catch up with our Yorkshireman, standing despondently at a lookout on a corner, looking nervously ahead to the last section of the track, up Grove Arm to Anakiwa. Although the track is becoming progressively easier, for him things are getting more difficult. He was planning to go on and do the road section around the bays along Queen Charlotte Drive at the end but has decided instead to take the boat from Anakiwa back to Picton. He rides on ahead. We hear a crash, but no other sound. We glance anxiously down the steep bank that goes down through the trees to the sea, but see no sign of the Yorkshireman or his bike. We learn later that he has made it out.
We enjoy some gentle sections in and out of wooded valleys, then a pleasant golden beach at Davies Bay. We come across an increasing number of day walkers. We slow our pace as we come to Anakiwa, partly to avoid some of the stiffness in our legs that we know will come on our drive back home, partly to savour the last opportunity to experience our beautiful natural surroundings. There is a colony of egrets nesting along the shore near the end of the track. We suspect that the bikers and the more energetic walkers have not spotted them. We arrive at Anakiwa.
The Dutch couple and the ladies from Palmerston North are yet to arrive. The Housewives are nowhere to be seen. They have arrived early and have commandeered the early boat back to Picton, apparently without thinking about the needs of the rest of us. We have just wasted the last four days getting to know them. The lady at the kiosk near the wharf doesn't mind. She is doing a good trade selling coffees and cold soft drinks, and ice creams, and we are happy to buy them off her. We sit cooling off, talking to the others. The next boat eventually arrives and takes us back to Picton to pick up our car.