Day 1
Ship Cove to Furneaux Lodge
14 km (~8 miles), 4.5 hours
  
Wednesday was cold and wet.  Not pouring, mind you - just enough to be annoying.  The boat ride to Ship Cove took about an hour and had us there by 9am.  The ride was pretty and the captain (is that what they're called?!?) gave a good narrative along the way.  
If there's a magic word that will motivate a boatload of cold, tired people, it's "dolphins".  I've never seen people move so quickly!  We had the first known sighting of bottlenose dolphins in the Sound for the season.  They were great - he sped up because they like to race and boy, did they ever!  Flipping around and coming up almost to touch us.  Of course, all my pictures turned out like this.......no action what-so-ever!

Ship Cove is a very historic place.  It was visited by James Cook many times and from here, you can see Motuara Island, where he raised the British flag in 1770 and took possession of mainland in the name of King George III.  Motuara Island is now a protected island that is home to many of NZ's rarest birds, including the Kiwi.  This island is not accessible through the tours.  
Here are some shots of the Queen Charlotte Sound from my first day:
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Although I did the walk myself, I made many friends along the way....
These little guys were all over the place.  At first, I thought I had stumbled upon a Kiwi - which is virtually impossible to find in the wild.  But, that's a common mistake.  It's a Weka - a flightless bird that acts like a chicken and swims like a fish...and they're thieves.  Will take anything they can from you - lunches, cameras, etc.  You need to watch where you place your pack!

 
My accommodations were awesome!  The first night was spent at the Furneaux Lodge, named after Captain Furneaux, one of Cook's captains on his second voyage.  Furneaux Lodge is only accessible by water or the track.  I had this 2 bedroom chalet all to myself.  It looked straight into the Sound.


Keeping in mind it's remote location, this was probably not the best time for me to be reading Stephen King's "Dreamcatcher".  I scared myself so badly the first night that I had to sleep with the lights on - both in my bedroom and the living room!


The chalets didn't have phones or television -  but as you can see from my heated towel rack, I wasn't exactly roughing it.
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