Hike: 27.5km, 240m

We had an early start to catch the ferry to take us to the start of the Queen Charlotte Track. Sadly we were too early for the free homemade bread and jam breakfast supplied by the hostel (we'll have double on our return!) We enjoyed our usual porridge instead with the talkative Stoke couple who called the UK at 7am very loudly! Communal living...

The ferry ride out to Ship's Cove was lovely, the rain had held off last night and Picton looked a great place in the early morning light. As we approached our destination however, the rain started! We put our pack covers on and rain jackets but it stopped as quickly as it began we we walked along the jetty in the dry. As soon as we got on land we saw our first Weka, a NZ duck/bird that looks like an evil Kiwi! We were excited though. We also saw a white-headed duck, not sure what that's called yet... Later in the walk we also saw a Tui!

The walk was steep uphill for a short while but the rest of the day was mainly flat and around bays. The views were pretty and we enjoyed lunch on a secluded jetty. Towards the last 5 km we were pretty tired and were keen to put our packs down! The views were similar all day and as we approached Camp Bay it started to drizzle. We got the tent up and dived in to let a rain storm pass. We then cooked dinner on the camp picnic table (there was no cooking shelter) with David from Israel and Paul from Germany. As we tucked in to our dinner the heavens opened and we dived under a tree to escape the worst of it. It then turned to hail and we had to retreat to the shelter of the men's loo (at least it was a flusher!) It wasn't the best night's camping and required some tent acrobatics to get in, remove wet clothes from the tent and dry ourselves (remember, we can't quite sit up in our tent!)