Puhikereru Bush Garden
Horoeka Cottage
John and Judy Hellstrom
The Queen Charlotte Track
How to Get Here
Contact | Booking
John and Judy Hellstrom
Puhikereru, Endeavour Inlet,
Marlborough Sounds, New Zealand
judy@puhikereru.net |
 
The track connects historic Ship Cove, near the entrance to Totaranui (Queen Charlotte Sound) with Anakiwa, 71 kilometres away, at Linkwater. Various sections of the track have been developed independently and the full track was only commissioned in the mid-1980s. The section from Ship Cove to Endeavour Inlet runs past Puhikereru’s front garden and continues on from the head of Endeavour Inlet around Big Bay to Punga Cove, where it rises to the Kenepuru Saddle. It then broadly follows the ridge between Queen Charlotte and Kenepuru Sounds as far as Te Mahia. There it swings south and heads down the Western side of Lochamara bay to the final coastal section to Anakiwa.
History of the Ship Cove to Punga Cove section
In 1866 the leasehold for a large block of land, the Ravenscliffe Run, was acquired by the Turner Brothers who built a home at Schoolhouse Bay, a cove on the north side of Resolution Bay, that is now a DOC camp site beside the track. The Ravenscliffe Run extended from Cape Jackson to the east side of Endeavour Inlet and was almost 20 kilometres long and included Little Waikawa Bay, Cannibal Cove, Ship Cove, Resolution Bay, Tawa Bay and the east side of Endeavour Inlet as far as Howden’s Bush. The track was initially a farm track connecting the farmed areas of Cannibal Cove and Resolution Bay. Much of Cannibal Cove had been cleared for farming in the 1830s, when it was the site of an early mission station. In Resolution Bay all the land to the south and west from Whatipu and Scott’s Point to the south side of Tawa Bay was cleared for farming during the 1870s and 1880s.
The discovery of gold near Cape Jackson and antimony in Resolution Bay and Endeavour Inlet created the need for an all weather bridal track connecting the two bays. This was built in the 1880s and some sections of the track, particularly the rock cuts in Tawa Bay, were dug by Cornish miners from Endeavour Inlet. After the mining failed in the 1890s the eastern side of Endeavour Inlet was also cleared for farming and the track continued to be used by the farmers who had acquired leaseholds from the broken-up Ravenscliffe Run. By the 1950s farming had ended in most of the higher and poorer country and the track fell into disuse. Between 1960 and 1980 the track over the Tawa Saddle was impassable due to slips and dense stands of gorse and the track from Resolution Bay to Ship Cove was kept open only by the efforts of the owners of the resort in Resolution Bay. The track to Endeavour Inlet was reopened, in part by the efforts of students from Outward Bound at Anakiwa, and maintained for several years by local residents until DOC took over responsibility for it about 1990.
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This first section of the track, from Ship Cove to Punga Cove, is entirely on public land and can be walked at any time of the year; bikes are allowed on this part of the track only between the 1st of March and the 30th of November. Beyond the Kenepuru Saddle the track crosses some privately owned land, and track passes are required to walk or bike the next few sections of the track.
Further information
www.qctrack.co.nz
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