Smith's Farm and Mountain Biking the Queen Charlotte Track

After our wine tasting afternoon, we stayed the night at Smith's Farm in Havelock. It had some fun animals and a pretty hike on site that led to a big waterfall. If you stay in the woods until dark, I guess you can also see glowworms, but I did the hike in the daylight.

On Monday morning, we rented mountain bikes and rode part of the Queen Charlotte Track, which we could access by riding only four kilometers from our campsite. New Zealand has several famous hikes; some take a full day and others take several days. The Queen Charlotte Track is one of the longer ones; it's 71 kilometers and takes most walkers four or five days and bikers two or three. We only rode to a major lookout and back, which took us a couple of hours. But that still gave us great views of the Marlborough Sounds. The panoramic shots below show you our whole view (if you combine them together).

It was a fun mountain bike ride and a good way to start the day, even though the weather was a little drizzly. But there was still some driving to do and more fun to be had on Christmas Eve Day! Stay tuned...