I am grateful to be a well travelled adult and to have well travelled kids. I've hiked in Yellowstone, Switzerland, Patagonia, Mauritania, Alaska. I've been to 6 continents. My three kids have been all over the country and the world. For example, Fynnie, was on 3 continents and in 6 states including a month in Alaska before his 1st birthday! With this as the background I absolutely declare that this glorious 2 day hike was the best two days of travelling of my life. It combined all the things I love the most- being outside in the wilderness (in excellent weather), hard work (but manageable, you know the "good stress"), time with the kiddos and most of all- seeing the enjoyment and pride the kids had in accomplishing this two day hike. This was a personal win, a parenting win, and just a really amazing way to spend 2 days. Could have done more days but with our current kids' ages and ability levels this was just right. We did this hike with 9 year Zooey, who can carry her own weight physically (10 miles a day) and emotionally, 5 year old Ollie who carried his own water pack sometimes, just his body sometimes (about 6 miles a day), and sometimes got a ride on a parent, and 9 mo old Fynn who loved being in a pack. We brought our Osprey Poco Premium (Adam's preferred pack) and our Toddler Tula which was by far my preferred way to carry either kid. I loved having them so close to me for carrying comfort and also for nursing, snuggles and chatting.
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| On the Cougar Line headed to the start at Resolution Bay |
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| Wellington to Picton ferry |
First, some lay of the land for those who may want to emulate this trip (and I HIGHLY recommend you do!!!). The Queen Charlotte Track is a roughly 70 K tramp on the northern (Marlborough) region of the South Island of New Zealand. It is one of the great tracks of New Zealand. A unique feature of this tramp is that you can walk lodge to lodge with luggage courier service. (Camping is also an option.) And you can make whatever modifications you need to cut the distance to accommodate your family's current ability levels. Typically, folks will take 4 days to do the entire tract, but the latter two days have a bit too much distance and elevation gain for our current comfort level. We could have done it but we'd certainly have went over the line into "slog" instead of "difficult but manageable" day of walking in the beauty of the Marlborough Sound with 3 variably mobile kids. I wanted us all to have hard times (ahem, growth opportunities, grit training ground), but to have really really awesome times and wanted to leave us all wanting more. Which we do...trying to re-create this magnificence in Switzerland later this year.
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| Carrying her and O's packs |
We flew from Chicago O'Hare-->Auckland (fly Air New Zealand, get the sky couch, it's amazing and worth it)-->Wellington. We spent a night in Wellington knowing we'd be totally wiped. We took the ferry to Picton the next day. We were obviously still jet lagged and the ferry day was a LOOONNG day so I was grateful I had the forethought to plan 2 nights in Picton prior to starting the hike. In other words, we didn't actually start the hike until day 5 of our journey. But this was so definitely the right call. By hike day we felt rested, acclimated, organized and ready to roll. We did not rent a car until the end of our hike. We used a shuttle service and 1 short (car seat less yikes) cab ride in Wellington, and everything in Picton is walkable.
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| Jet lag is no joke |
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| Cool Picton playground |
The typical place to start is Ship's Cove but we decided to cut some of the distance and instead hitched a ride with Cougar Line to Resolution Bay. We ended up on a boat with a bunch of Dutch retirees who just loved our kiddos and our adventure; it was a fun ride:) We then walked from the boat dock at Resolution Bay to Furneaux Lodge. This made our first days walk about 8.5 miles (I'll use miles since, well, the crazy US still uses miles). It took us about 5 hours with tons of stops for pictures, exploration, snacks, and re-organization of the littles.
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| About to set out! |
There are multiple services that will shuttle you and your luggage virtually anywhere you want on the Queen Charlotte tract. This is key to make your life hike more enjoyable with kids who need to be carried:) All you need carry is your day pack with appropriate clothing, food and water. When you are (at least intermittently) carrying two kids, it's real nice to not be carrying ALL THE THINGS. Zooey, our 9 yo, carried her water and our rain gear in an Osprey jet 12. She is certainly ready for a bigger bag but felt this would be super manageable for her and it was. Ollie, 5, rotated between carrying his water pack, nothing and being carried. Ollie very impressively walked about 6 miles a day, using the "pack breaks" for napping, morale boosting and leg resting. Poor guy has had a year full of illness (post COVID year, the URIs are out of control) so I was very grateful to not have to push him too hard and to have a way to carry him. Cougar Line was great- on time, our bags were exactly where we expected them to be. They were kind and patient as I changed our itinerary a few times once I better understood our options and as I fleshed out the rest of our trip. Pricy- but we had some private transfers included.
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| LOVE the Toddler Tula- can wear on front or back |
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| Not gonna lie, felt like a bad ass mama |
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| Water only packs are great for littles! |
Our first day walk was a blast. It starts with some uphill just to get from the boat dock to the tract and the kid complaints started right away. However, as soon as the kids got into the rhythm of it, the complaints lessened and it was mostly downright enjoyable. As a family, we have certainly done our share of outdoor adventuring and I honestly can't overstate the importance of creating true family challenges. The kids were well aware that we were walking from the dock to our lodge and there was no other option. So there was no point in complaining or cajoling us to "turn around" or "stop this hike". We simply had to get there. This doesn't mean they didn't complain- it just means the complaints indicated a real need- hunger, thirst, need to change temperature, need for emotional support, etc- rather than just bitching and moaning. This mutual challenge automatically builds a sense of family teamwork that can easily get lost in the hustle bustle of home life where we all have individual goals/needs/interests in addition to the family goals.
The first night destination was the Furneaux Lodge. This is a very cool wilderness lodge with only boat access. We had a 2 bedroom cabin with bathroom and kitchen. One thing we noticed in NZ, is that once we needed lodging for 4-5 (depending on if Fynnie "counted"), the rooms tended to hold 6. For example this two bedroom cabin had beds for 6. Very good to know if we bring parents, friends or more kids on future trips. After some roll around time for Fynn, the big kids went in the hot tub and then we headed to the restaurant for dinner. I was a bit strapped for time in planning this trip- if I had realized we had a full kitchen we might have brought food to cook. As it was we had minimal cooler food which was great for breakfast and lunch. Truth be told eating out for dinner was a really nice luxury and since we do it so infrequently the kids thought it was really fun. Overall this was a perfect, perfect day.
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| "Brothers, brothers, it's brothers, brothers" |
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| "Gotta dance, gotta dance, yeah, yeah, yeah" |
Back to 2023:
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The pack is his happy place
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| Amazing sibling moments |
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| Stingray! |
Punga Cove
Punga Cove was a fantastic spot to spend the afternoon and next morning. We had a spacious cabin with 3 bedrooms, kitchen, living room and most importantly huge porch with this view:
We spent most of our time on a porch. The porch of our cabin or the porch at dinner. We had the best dinner. The food was great. We felt so accomplished having hiked 2 big days with this crew. The kids "got it", you know? They understood this was something to be proud of, something that is hard, something not everybody has the opportunity to do- and let's face it many people with the opportunity just don't put in the effort. Lifelong memories created as a family:)
The next morning Z and I went paddleboarding and saw TONS of stingrays. Very cool. Ollie joined us for a while as well, but we lack pics of that as I was too focused on not dumping us:)
Were there challenges on the trail? Of course there were. For example, on Day 1, on mile 7 of what we thought was just a 6.5 mile day, while I had Ollie on my back and my daypack on my front, Adam had Fynn/gear/water and Z had her daypack, Z came up to me and said “I can’t do this”, I said “I can’t either” and without further words we both kept walking. Hard. But also awesome. There were low morale moments for all of us, but I was impressed with how fleeting they were and how little it took to rally (Shade! A picnic table! Another kid in a pack! A sign!) And the stops, oh the frequent stops- someone has to pee, someone has to eat, someone needs in the pack-out of the pack-to change packs. I had to frequently remind myself in my head that we were in no rush, the journey was the thing, not trying to break any land speed records here and that each step was forward progress (kinda like a rough round of golf- forward progress is good enough).
Z set a very respectable pace, complained only briefly about heat, our frequent stops, and what she deemed a slow pace some of the time Ollie was walking. However, by dinner the second night she reported that she really enjoyed the hike and that we should only do “long hikes like this” in the future (!). Little Ollie did incredibly well hiking 5-6 miles a day despite reporting “my little legs aren’t strong enough”. He took pack breaks as needed but usually wasn’t in more than 30 mins before he wanted to walk again. Fynnie was easy going as ever causing no trouble at all, sleeping most of the time, only crying for one 30 minute spell when we thought he was tired but turns out he was hungry (oops). There was an absolutely magical hour on day 2 where Ollie and Zooey walked together (at a seriously fast pace) holding hands, laughing and chatting. Adam and I stayed way back careful not to disrupt this rare sibling magic.
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| Z, 9 yo. Magic. |
What do I attribute our success to? Luck, good weather, packing light, using a luggage transfer service so we only had to carry daypacks and our family culture of outdoor adventure especially our Alaska adventure last summer- these kids are used to 5 mile hikes as a matter of course so 7-10 miles was not a shock to the system emotionally even if they hadn’t physically hiked in months. Staying at lodges each night was downright luxurious to this family used to RV camping.
I highly recommend the first 2 days (Resolution Bay to Furneaux, Furneaux to Punga Cove) of the Queen Charlotte Tract to any outdoor loving families. Or if NZ feels too far, consider any lodge to lodge trek. They really are the best of all worlds. Pure non distracted family time in fresh air and natural beauty with your family aligned to a common purpose without the work of camping at the end haha. Nothing better.
The typical place to start is Ship's Cove but we decided to cut some of the distance and instead hitched a ride with Cougar Line to Resolution Bay. We ended up on a boat with a bunch of Dutch retirees who just loved our kiddos and our adventure; it was a fun ride:) We then walked from the boat dock at Resolution Bay to Furneaux Lodge. This made our first days walk about 8.5 miles (I'll use miles since, well, the crazy US still uses miles). It took us about 5 hours with tons of stops for pictures, exploration, snacks, and re-organization of the littles. 
Our first day walk was a blast. It starts with some uphill just to get from the boat dock to the tract and the kid complaints started right away. However, as soon as the kids got into the rhythm of it, the complaints lessened and it was mostly downright enjoyable. As a family, we have certainly done our share of outdoor adventuring and I honestly can't overstate the importance of creating true family challenges. The kids were well aware that we were walking from the dock to our lodge and there was no other option. So there was no point in complaining or cajoling us to "turn around" or "stop this hike". We simply had to get there. This doesn't mean they didn't complain- it just means the complaints indicated a real need- hunger, thirst, need to change temperature, need for emotional support, etc- rather than just bitching and moaning. This mutual challenge automatically builds a sense of family teamwork that can easily get lost in the hustle bustle of home life where we all have individual goals/needs/interests in addition to the family goals.
The first night destination was the Furneaux Lodge. This is a very cool wilderness lodge with only boat access. We had a 2 bedroom cabin with bathroom and kitchen. One thing we noticed in NZ, is that once we needed lodging for 4-5 (depending on if Fynnie "counted"), the rooms tended to hold 6. For example this two bedroom cabin had beds for 6. Very good to know if we bring parents, friends or more kids on future trips. After some roll around time for Fynn, the big kids went in the hot tub and then we headed to the restaurant for dinner. I was a bit strapped for time in planning this trip- if I had realized we had a full kitchen we might have brought food to cook. As it was we had minimal cooler food which was great for breakfast and lunch. Truth be told eating out for dinner was a really nice luxury and since we do it so infrequently the kids thought it was really fun. Overall this was a perfect, perfect day.
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