Havelock and The Queen Charlotte Track

I catch an intercity bus one hour east of Nelson and arrive at the little town of Havelock, which is situated on the west of the Malborough Sounds, at the mouth of the Pelorus River. Havelock calls itself ‘The Greenshell Mussell Capital of the World’.

Havelock

I make a circuit of the town and find it has a pleasant waterfront with a working harbour for the mussels and a smart marina. There are several places to eat, from a takeaway to a top end café-restaurant and they all serve mussels. I decide that I should try the mussels while I am here and as I have a discount voucher from the hostel for the posh café-restaurant, that’s where I have my lunch, sitting looking out over the marina.

Havelock Marina

Mussells for Lunch

I call into the small museum and find out that there was an original Maori settlement on this site and then the European settlers came here on the back of the gold rush of the 1860s and Havelock grew up as a port to service this industry. Timber and saw mills were the main business and the museum has many mementoes of this time. One of the main sources of entertainment and recreation in the town seems to have been wood chopping and sawing competitons.

Sawmill workers of 1880

I am amused by the collection of saws displayed on the wall of the museum – it’s a family joke that Sue, Keith and Andrew will appreciate!

Saws in the museum

Havelock has two famous sons: William Pickering, whose field of expertise was jet propulsion and guided missiles. He directed the construction of the first US satellite. The second was Ernest Rutherford, who won a Nobel Prize in chemistry in 1908 with the snappy title of ‘his investigations into the disintegration of the elements and the chemistry of radioactive substances’. He was one clever dude and developed the fore-runner of the Geiger Counter and split the atom in 1918.

I look in a shop window that displays community notices and posters, to see what is going on in the town. Sadly there don't appear to be any woodchopping competitions any more. There is an advert for the Havelock Players amateur dramatic show which is currently running at the community hall. The proceeds from tonight’s performance are going to the Christchurch earthquake relief fund. There is also a poster still up from last year’s Annual Havelock Pig Hunt. It took place between 6am on Friday 17 June, with the final weigh in at 4pm on Sunday 19 June. The prize for the ‘best tusks’ is a taxidermy freeze-dried head mount valued at $1000 (about £500). The heaviest boar prize is $500 worth of jacket and trousers. There are also separate women’s and youth categories for under 15 year olds. The youth’s first prize is a hunting knife worth $200 and the women’s first prize is a voucher worth $150. Not much encouragement for the female hunters!

Annual Havelock Pig Hunt Poster

I borrow a bicycle from the hostel and cycle out along the side of the estuary to a point. There is a short walkway here which gives great views of Pelorus Sound.

Pelorus Sound

The Queen Charlotte Track is another New Zealand ‘Great Walk’ it goes through the Malborough Sounds and it finishes not too far from Havelock. The walk is very flexible, like the Abel Tasman Coastal Track, in that you can get water taxis to various points along the track, have your luggage transferred and also kayak or cycle. The down-side of the track is that it can all get quite expensive. Much of the track is on private land, so there is a track fee to pay and all the accommodation is private.  I decide I will just walk the final section of around 25km as a day walk. I decide to hitch to get to where I want to start walking and back from the finish. Before people back home start getting worried, let me explain that many backpackers use hitching to get around New Zealand and everyone I have spoken to says that it is nothing like hitching in Europe and they have only had good experiences. It is also a good way to meet New Zealand people. I haven’t done it myself yet, but I take the advice of the hostel owner that it is the best way to access this part of the track. So here comes another new experience for me. The day is overcast, and slightly chilly, but dry. I set off at 8 o’clock, eager to get an early start and walk down the road and position myself appropriately on the quiet road that heads in the right direction. I soon realise that I am probably too early, as the first vehicles that go past me are people going to work and they shrug and wave at me, but don’t stop. After about 20 minutes a travelling salesman on his way to Picton picks me up. He sells Unilever food products to school kitchens and residential homes. After about 20 minutes he has to drop me at a T junction because our paths diverge. Again I stand by the side of the road with nothing in sight other thn a few cows in a field. The first car that comes past stops. This is an English ex-pat woman who has been living here for 5 years. She takes me another 15 minutes to a lay-by, where she turns off down a small ‘no exit’ road. It is very quiet here, with very little traffic and I can hear the few cars there on the road approaching before I see them. The first few vehicles just drive on by, including a small black sports car, which is really motoring. I’m glad he didn’t stop. Next up is a huge lorry with two trailers. He pulls up and is happy to take me the final ½ hour to my destination. He works for company that has the contract to maintain the roads in this remote area and he is taking a load of gravel in to resurface an unsealed road and then he is bringing out a digger. As we chat I ask him if he usually picks up hitch hikers. He answers no, because it is against company policy, but he stopped for me because I was standing in such a remote location, he didn’t think I would get a lift otherwise. The road winds around the coast, with beautiful views of the sound. He stops talking whenever we get to a particularly difficult section of the road. Often he needs the whole width of the road to negotiate the corners and even then in the mirror I can see his back wheels right on the white line at the edge of the road. He drops me at a small bay called Portage where there is a smart hotel and a few houses. It is 10 o’clock and I am pleased with my first hitching experience. I start my walk by climbing up a steep tarmac road to join the Queen Charlotte Track, which runs along a ridge between Kenepura and Queen Charlotte Sounds. There are beautiful views from the track in both directions. On a sunnier day the sounds would probably be even more stunning.

Queen Charlotte Track along the Ridge

Views from the Track

Along the way there are small foxgloves by the side of the path and at one point where the tracks drops down to a cove there is a whole bank of blue and white agapanthus planted outside a property.

Foxgloves

Agapanthus

The walk takes me 6 ½ hours and it is pleasant to trot along carrying only a day bag. When I get to the car park at the end of the track I start walking along the road and stick my thumb out to the first car that passes. It stops and in it are a couple of young Danish girls who I passed and re-passed on the last part of the path. They drop me right back to my hostel and I am back by 5pm.