A Two-Day Tramp

Early the next morning, we made our way to the water taxi that was going to drop us off at Ship’s Cove to begin the “roughing it” part of our journey. May I note that “roughing it” for us on the Queen Charlotte Track involved packing a whole fish, steaks, various side dish ingredients, four bottles of wine and two six-packs of beer into coolers, handing it to the water taxi driver, and telling him which cottage along the track at which to drop it.

So we were dropped off at Ship’s Cove to complete a not-too-strenuous 5km walk, while our various bags and food boxes were delivered to our destination. We met up with some interesting Americans from Boulder, Co, and as we philosophized our way down the trail (stopping for a Monteith’s Radler at the peak—did I mention it’s legal to drink in public in New Zealand? It just keeps getting better. And by the way, lemon-lime flavoured beer is refreshing on a hike), we were hailed by a British lady, who asked, “And where are you wonderfully philosophical people from?” We later hung onto that exchange, because from then on we had to defend against surly Kiwis who assumed we were American (and in New Zealand, this is not a good thing).

Our arrival at Resolution Bay came quickly. The cottages here, while having no power or any kind of heating, were equipped with gas-powered hot water, fridge and stove. We pulled out our lunch items, dry Italian salami, baguette, roasted red pepper hummus, the last of the fig and walnut roll (yay!) and a variety of cheeses. Crystal and Jeff know we like blue cheese, so they separately purchased blue brie and blue cheddar. This was in no way a problem for me.

While I’d intended the red wines that we’d brought for our steak dinner (not happening until tomorrow), we decided that a beautiful sunny day on a warm deck was a suitable time to open one of them. And besides, there was a pub at the next lodge along the track, so we could always restock tomorrow.

The Te Kairanga Syrah relaxed nicely in the sun, and so did we. We ended up snacking and sipping for a good two hours—and the next bottle of red wine ended up getting opened as well.

We needed to work off the wine and cheese at that point, so headed to the docks to watch the fish below, and then took some kayaks out for a paddle. Somehow that was enough to make us hungry again, so we set the fish to bake, stuffed with fresh lemon balm and parsley from the resort owner’s herb garden, and a fresh lemon picked right off the tree near our cottage.

By the end of the evening, we’d polished off the last two bottles of white wine (of special note was the Kim Crawford unoaked chardonnay—buttery without being heavy like some chardonnays. I think unoaked chardonnays are my favourite dry white wine). We hadn’t solved all the world’s problems, but close.