Hike or Mountain Bike Queen Charlotte Track, Marlborough Sounds, New Zealand

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The Queen Charlotte Track, located at the top of New Zealands South Island in the Marlborough Sounds is a 71km-long trek (hike) between the Queen Charlotte and Keneperu Sound. The track stretching from Ship Cove to Anakiwa offers lush coastal forest and skyline ridges with unsurpassed views of the islands and bays of the sounds. It can be done in either direction, but it's best to set from Ship Cove because almost all walkers and mountain bikers move in this direction at their own pace, which makes the track feels uncrowded and tranquil. The hiking trip it can be completed in 3-5 days and biking the track takes approximately 13 hours although completing this over 2 - 3 days is ideal. Part of the track is closed to bikes from December to February. November, March and April are the best times to go. Queen Charlotte Sound is the easternmost of the main sounds of the Marlborough Sounds, in New Zealand's South Island. It is, like the other sounds, a drowned river valley (or ria), and like the majority of its neighbours it runs southwest to northeast before joining Cook Strait. The town of Picton, the northern terminus of the South Island's railway and State Highway networks, lies near the head of the Sound. Other settlements by the sound are small and isolated - often simply individual properties. Due to the rugged nature of the coast, for many of these access is by boat only. To the east of the sound lie Arapawa Island and Tory Channel. Interisland ferries use Tory Channel and Queen Charlotte Sound on their journeys between Picton and Wellington in the North Island. Parallel to Queen Charlotte Sound to the northwest lies Kenepuru Sound, an arm of Pelorus Sound, Marlborough's other main sound. Some of the small side arms of the two sounds are only hundreds of metres apart, but are separated by a steep serrated range of hills. Not surprisingly, one of the settlements on this stretch of coast is called Portage, named for the simplest method of passing between the two sounds. Either carrying all of your own clothing and equipment, or you can simply carry a day pack and have your main gear (less than 15kg) transported by one of the water taxi companies. The area was a base for whaling throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries, notably at Perano Head on Arapawa Island.

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