Day 10 + 11 — Hiking the Queen Charlotte Track
When we found out that the legendary and beautiful Queen Charlotte Track is just a five Minute drive from the farm; we were just over the top! Miya’s really good friend is called Charlotte and we wanted to go on that hike — no matter where or how difficult it is.
And it turned out to be a very nice track with even nice hotels to stay and have even a nice glass of wine on the way. We hiked half the track in two days. Two days for our very first hike was just right!
We started to climb exhausting 400 Meters (why would we ever do that on the very first hiking day…ever?!) and as the sun was bright and light we had to stop at every little shade. Imagine: one tree, stop, 5 Meter walk, one tree, stop, 10 Meter walk, one tree, stop, 7 Meter walk, one tree, stop and that went on for about 2 hours. We didn’t had much for breakfast as we rushed out to get our transportation to the point where we wanted to start and we quickly run out of energy. First lesson. Eat a heavy and big breakfast before you go on any hike!
When we then found out that our planed lunch spot was out of reach (too far away from the track for little legs) we screamed ‘emergency’ on top of our lungs. Well, we decided then to eat everything we had and just hope that the hotel where we would stay for the night would have dinner for us and something to go for the next day. And luckily they had pizza and breakfast and we took the leftovers for our lunch on day two. Lesson no. 2. Pack much more food than you think you need!
But all problems solved! And the second day was much smoother. No exhausting climbs, but beautiful views and amazing nature. We even explored heavy science questions like: Where is humankind and the world as we know it coming from? And the not yet fully answered and extremely interesting question about nature vs nurture in identical twins. And can we recreate a mammoth with the strings of DNA which were recently discovered?
At the end we deserved an ice-cream and went happily back to the farm. We made 13 Kilometers in five hours on the second day. And while Mick and me were pretty done and rubbed each others legs, Jamie and Miya went on the trampoline for another 4 hours with their new two Danish friends; bouncing and jumping like bouncy balls… Those little tiny legs are just unstoppable and ever moving power machines! Tonight I will cut them off and exchange with mine. I want those legs!
