Arrving at the South Island

New Zealand is divided into two main island, called simply North Island and South Island (not very original!). The North Island is the smaller of the two but is where most people live (and Auckland gets the lion's share of those) with the South having just over a million people there. You can fly to the South Island directly but as this is more expensive I flew into Auckland, and so the only way to get there now was to take a ferry via Wellington.



I took an overnight boat with BlueBridge ferries (there are only two companies) and arrived in Picton at around 5:30am. This for me, was when New Zealand really started to come alive. The North Island seems so much more flat and dull compared to the South, Picton really is very striking. I found a campsite and went to sample the local fish and chips (average at best). While at Picon I decided to walk the Queen Charlotte track, which took me about 5 days. It was here that I first suffered from sandfly bites, I was so ill informed that I simply didn't know that they bit! As a result I had horrible itchy lumps on my legs, and wasn't able to get rid of them until I got back to Picton.


It was also on the trek that I first encountered the huge number of wasps that inhabit certain areas of NZ. Apparently they didn't exist there until 1942 when they were accidentally bought over from a shipment of timber originating in Europe. Now they thrive in any area with beach trees, they can't get enough of the rich tree sap. There are so many more than in the UK, I must have personally seen over a million wasps whilst I was there and yet, amazingly, did not get stung once. Compared to wasps in the UK they are much less aggressive and tend to fly low along the ground. The NZ Department of Conservation Rangers have been experimenting with with a protein based poison called Xterminate that is excellent for obliterating wasps nests, so hopefully this can be deployed and the problem eradicated in future years.


The Queen Charlotte track (http://www.qctrack.co.nz/) was one of the most beautiful walks I went on in NZ, beautiful weather and amazing views! There were no huts on the route, so I camped overnight and met some great people. Unlike most of the routes I went on, the QCT is also open to mountain bikers which sounds like a great idea should I ever return. It's not a particularly demanding walk, but as I was just starting out I still found it hard going in places. A good way to find your tramping legs!


Once back in Picton I booked a bus at the local tourist office and set off for Nelson, the second largest urban area in the South Island, although probably not all that much larger than Kettering and Corby combined. I would eventually return to Picton on the way back to the airport about 4 months later.