Day 76: Camp Bay to School House Bay

Our bags this morning were a little heavier than what we'd usually have running down into the last real day of tramping. We substituted eating pack food for restaurant food yesterday, as our DOC tent site was right next door to one. Today we had a flat walk around Endeavour inlet, on the Queen Charlotte Sound side, to start off with.

In toward the inlet is an old mining settlement, long since gone. Apparently never profitable, but they mined for antimony. At its peak a hundred or so settled around the area. While all that has faded away, there are now here newer houses, mostly holiday baches, though there are a handful of permanent residents amoung them. Getting close to the mouth of the inlet we were greeted by some cloud rolling over the top of the hills.

We got around the inlet and once again were tempted by a restaurant on the track's edge. This is supposed to be a tramp damn it, what business have restaurants being along a tramping track.

Along the way, we met a guy out working for DOC— taking surveys on the track. They're trying to create a series of "great day walks" or something; akin to the multi-day great walks.

After lunch at the Furneaux Lodge (fish and chips, the fish really was quite excellent), we continued on. The track climbs over a small hill and back down to the next bay behind. Along the bay's edge was where we would be tenting tonigh, to wait for a boat out in the morning. Along the way we encountered our first adverse track conditions of the QCT... A piece of bush lawyer overhanging just above my eyeline. It really did get me quite well entangled. Luckily I had Emma there to save the day.

Climbing over we got a few more expansive views back over the Queen Charlotte Sound.

Then we were down the other side into Schoolhouse bay, for our last night on the south island.

We pitched tent, and there was a family there who had boated in for the night, we had a chat with them at dinner and settled in. My mat required pumping up a couple of times through the night. No obvious puncture wounds in it, I'll need a bath to find the leak. It's very slow, but getting worse. A series of easy days on the QCT to finish off what is otherwise an often challenging, though rewarding, South Island of the Te Araroa. Tomorrow we embark to the North to continue.

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