Trip Report: Queen Charlotte Wilderness Park

PJ, Maya, Cecile, Mari and me spent the past few days at Queen Charlotte Wilderness Park (QCWP). It was an amazingly awesome experience and I'm quite glad we found the place on the web and chose to go there. I thought we had a reservation from Jan 1 - 3, however when i sent a confirmation email to Ron, he reminded me that our reservation was not till the 5th. Since they did have room, we rescheduled it for the 1st. A day later Ron sends me a mail saying we should come on the 5th rather than the 1st since the weather forecast is quite bad for the first few days of 2007. This was amazingly nice of Ron, and I suspect happens only in NZ :)

We left Nelson early in the morning (6:30 am) to catch the Endeavor Express ferry to Cape Jackson. We had a quick breakfast at Le Cafe in Picton, which was ok (5/10, good scones, average coffee). We had heard good things about the Village Bakery, and we bought a croissant, chocolate croissant and a savory scone. For the first time in the past 4 weeks we've had a decent croissant, however the scone was quite awful which negated the experience.

The boat ride to Cape Jackson was quite nice and pleasant. The weather was sunny and brisk, the scenery quite wonderful (lots of green mountains). There were quite a few people on the boat doing the Queen Charlotte Track and/or day walks in the area. I suspect Mari and I will be doing that track sometime over the next few months (when we have some good visitors to take care of the kids). Its a 3-nite / 4-day hike and relatively easy. You can get your backpacks transferred to the next destination by boat to make it even easier, and stay in decent lodges and/or backpackers along the track.

There was another couple from London along with a 16 month baby, Miranda, who were also headed to QCWP. That was good for the kids since they had another kid to play with. PJ had a good time playing with Miranda for most of the trip, and was surprisingly quite gentle with her. QCWP caters breakfast and dinner, but you are on your own for lunch. They have a well stocked store (had an excellent Pinot Noir from Sanctuary Wines for dinner the next day). They also had 4 dogs which made the kids a bit tentative for a large part of the trip. The hiking trails around the lodge are quite extensive and well described here.


It was quite excellent to have Cecile with us, since we managed to do quite a few of the hikes and took turns taking care of the kids. Ron was an excellent host and offered to drive us to the lighthouse with the kids the next day.

Part of the group started the hike towards the lighthouse in the morning. The dads stayed behind and played with the kids. A couple of hours later we got in the land rover and started towards the lighthouse. The ride was quite interesting and bumpy. Our timing was quite excellent and we met the moms at the end of the track. We had a picnic in the area and could see the old retired horses grazing in the meadow. They do come upto the ridge when they see the truck, since Ron gives them a few treats when he passes by. After lunch, Ron took mari and the kids back to the lodge, while the rest of us marched towards the lighthouse. It was quite a interesting hike and the wind was intense. It did seem like the wind could pick us up and fling us around any minute.


The walk back was quite nice and pleasant. I had also done a fair amount of this hike the previous day with Mari. It was good to be out and about in nature. The trail meanders between the two sides of the island and its quite nice to see both sides periodically.

Dinners were quite nice and filling. I would not call the meals gourmet, but they were quite substantial and hearty. This was probably the only area that could benefit from an upgrade. They did cater to Mari's vegetarian/seafood request, even though it was a last minute request. We had garlic bread, venison, mashed potates and pumpkin cake the first night, and pineapple bread, baked chicken, chocolate cake and ice cream the second night. Mari and Cecile also shared fabulous home-made tartine lemon bars with the group the second night.

The third day we packed up, bid farewell and got back on the ferry for the long ride home. The ferry on the way back stops at all the places to pick up and drop backpacks and/or passengers for the Queen Charlotte track. We spent a few hours in Picton, had a pretty good lunch near the playground from a roadside stall and headed back home to Nelson. Overall we gave the trip a pretty high rating and will head back there with some other visitors.

The best part about QCWP is the business model. Ron and his family purchased the park in 1993 or so. They own approx 1500 acres and 20 km of coastline. They stopped farming the land in 2003 and are in the process of removing all the introduced animals, sheep, cattle, pigs, and goats, which is not an easy task. This enables the forest to recover and grow back to what it was a few hundred years ago. In 2003, QCWP became NZ's first commercial carbon sink. Since a forest by its very nature, consumes carbon and emits oxygen, QCWP is consuming excess carbon generated by industry. They sell this "excess carbon" to a third party who estimates the amount of carbon that is consumed, and then re-sell this to other parties. There is a fair amount of information on commercial carbon sinks etc on the web and I think is part of the Kyoto protocol (obviously i don't know enough about this). One more thing to learn more about ...