Tag: Marlborough Sounds

Debriefing: Queen Charlotte Sound

Different means of travel, different speeds. This sort of put trip planning off a little. On the other hand, not having to spend a whole day slogging on towards some distant goal had its benefits, not least of which was enjoying the scenery. More could have, should have been done, but I’ll happily leave that for another time.

Section (with links) Distance Track Time Break Mean speed Median time|distance
Picton – Mistletoe Bay 19.4 km 3:26 h 2:14 h 5.65 km/h 6.53|6.76 km/h
Mistletoe Bay – Kumutoto Bay 19.9 km 3:44 h 2:54 h 5.35 km/h 5.74|6.18 km/h
Kumutoto Bay – Blumine Island 21.9 km 3:42 h 1:34 h 5.94 km/h 6.60|6.73 km/h
Blumine Island – Cannibal Cove 16.3 km 2:46 h 1:21 h 5.92 km/h 6.55|6.68 km/h
Cannibal Cove – Ship Cove 7.8 km 1:34 h 0:54 h 4.99 km/h 6.04|6.29 km/h
Totals 85.5 km 15:20 h 8:49 h 5.57 km/h 6.35|6.57 km/h
Summary of paddling the Queen Charlotte Track
Way to go: Speed distribution by time, Queen Charlotte Sound
Way to go: Speed distribution by time, Queen Charlotte Sound

The boat was no doubt fast (and special thanks again to Marlborough Sounds Adventures for a very reasonably priced 5-day hire and return transport – $240 per person), possibly due to the fact that it was not packed to the hilt. A later trip in western Sweden using plastic boats and carrying all supplies for twelve days proved to be somewhat slower. Read more…

1. Auckland – Christchurch – Invercargill

Saturday, February 11: Sunny in Auckland & Christchurch, variable cloud around and fairly warm, high clouds in Invercargill

Randa’s ($50, airbnb)

For the final couple of hours I managed three episodes of Attenborough’s Planet Earth II. Nice pictures, but apart from the repetitious text to the point of being cliched, there was something worrying about Attenborough’s treatment of competition, which didn’t appear to be conceptually uniform. Nor was his use of contact clauses, by the way, with one or two being quite pithy and the remainder fell into the category of up with which I will not put.

Only really missed out on Mars, but not sure whether that would have been missing out on much. But it did occur to me that the Gemini story had led indirectly to massive improvements in civil aviation, if not civilian space travel or even space tourism. Read more…

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