Queen Charlotte Walkway hiker heaven

You can do the track pack-free, sending your gear ahead by boat, or even cycle it.

Die-hard hikers describe people who have their gear carried for them between overnight lodgings as "slack-packers", but for families it is not to be scoffed at.

Youngsters cannot carry much, and however much energy they seem to have when playing with friends, their legs turn to lead when accompanying their parents.

So when we were planning a family holiday with two boys aged 8 and 12, the Queen Charlotte Walkway seemed just the thing. Water taxis transport heavy packs from one night's stop to the next, and accommodation along the way offers hot showers and cold drinks, while being close to the sea.

This frees you to carry just what is needed for the day as you wind around the bays and ridges of the Marlborough Sounds, glimpsing New Zealand as Captain Cook would have seen it.

After a few phone calls and emails to Picton's Visitor Information Centre, we get tickets and vouchers for each stage of our trip. In Picton, we check into a back-packers' hostel near the waterfront, with shared bunkrooms, kitchen and washrooms.

Next morning we are powering along Queen Charlotte Sound in a comfortable launch, past a succession of secluded headlands and stony bays, looking for signs of the track in the forest that cloaks the crinkled hills from seashore to skyline.

We disembark at Ship Cove, a sheltered bay with a view out to the open sea from a small grassy delta between two streams.

A white memorial adorned with an anchor and cannons commemorates how Captain Cook, drawn by its sheltered anchorage, plentiful freshwater and flat land for repairs, visited here five times on his three voyages to the South Pacific in the 1770s.

Leaving our packs on the boat we take a short detour through the bush to a waterfall tumbling over a 10m rock face, then follow the track proper heading south. It's broad, and covered in glutinous mud that could be made into pots.

The track continues through forest to a saddle overlooking our first night's destination at Resolution Bay, a cluster of cabins around a farmstead.

"How much further?"

Our boys need some distraction to forget how far they are walking. We try guessing the number of bridges on the next section of track, and play "20 questions" to identify someone's chosen bird, placename and so on beginning with a particular letter.

We point out tui, weka, wood pigeon, white-faced heron, dragonflies and more. And we carry a short biography of Cook to read sections aloud from each evening.

After two hours of walking, we find our packs waiting for us at Resolution Bay and settle into a quaint little cottage, self-contained but for hot water in a separate shower block. The boys have energy to burn after such a gentle initiation, and spend the afternoon in the resort's kayaks in the bay, until an evening wind whips up the waves.

The night is quiet but for the odd mosquito, whining and dining in the dark.

After a leisurely breakfast, we leave our packs on the jetty and return to the track, climbing above the farmland to some reverting bush and small pine plantings.

Beyond another saddle overlooking Endeavour Inlet, the track becomes almost suburban, and we pass baches with tended gardens and the muffled noise of children, radios and power tools.

After five hours' walking we skirt behind Furneaux Lodge, arriving in the early afternoon at Endeavour Resort where we take a chalet and the boys mess about on the water in a leaky dinghy.

Blue sky and sunshine greet us next day, and we leave early along the track, which weaves in and out of the trees beside the water.

Passing a headland we come slowly around Big Bay, stopping on the southern shore at a homestay near Punga Cove.

As the boys hit the water in kayaks, showers come and go, leaving wispy plumes hanging over the forest. Wandering among the jetties, we become attuned to the daily rhythm of the mail boat services, bringing provisions and news from around the Sounds.

Having depleted our daily scroggin allowance that day and taken five hours, not the recommended four, the next, longest leg to Portage seems ominous: an eight or nine-hour tramp of more than 20km.

We contemplate a tentative plan B - spending another $100 or so to take ourselves by water taxi to our next destination. Super-slack-packing comes at a cost.

The daunting day dawns cloudy and cool with intermittent drizzle, but we stick with the track, broad and mostly dry as it leads high along the ridge between Queen Charlotte and Kenepuru Sounds.

We coax the boys regularly - a barley sugar at half past each hour, a scroggin stop on the hour.

We climb 10 minor summits before reaching Torea Saddle, where Maori once hauled their canoes between the Sounds. We walk down the road, arriving at Portage Hotel eight hours after starting out.

After taking a rest day at Portage, marked by grey skies and wavelets driven by a chill southerly, we resume the ridge-top track. Its broad, meadowy verges command a wide panorama over Kenepuru and Queen Charlotte Sounds, and crawl with yellow and black caterpillars.

Dropping to Mistletoe Bay, a DoC-managed reserve with a delightful, grassy clearing nestled in bush, we settle into a self-contained cottage and spend the afternoon pottering around on the muddy foreshore in the sun, watching boats passing by.

Our last day is hot and sunny, with a fresh breeze.

We share the track with a few mountain-bikers as it leads through open farmland and around another headland into the welcome shade of beech forest.

Blue water shimmers beyond the tree trunks, and we descend gradually and emerge into relative civilisation at Anakiwa, in time to catch the water taxi to Picton.

We catch the evening ferry to Wellington, escorted by dolphins. Slack-packing it may be, but after walking 67km in 31 hours over six days, cool drinks taste good.

Getting there
The round trip starts and ends in Picton. South Islanders can get there by driving; North Islanders by driving to Wellington and taking the ferry ($55 each adult one way, $35 each child 2-14 years old).

Otherwise it's a case of flying to Blenheim or Koromiko and taking a bus from there. Airfare combinations are too numerous to summarise, but from Auckland to Blenheim costs $121-$284 each adult, $98-$213 each child (2-11 years) depending on type of fare.

Transport
Round-trip water taxi tickets from Picton to the start of the track, daily pack transport, and back to Picton at the end of the track, cost around $60 for adults.

Tramping
If you don't want to organise your own walk, the Marlborough Sounds Adventure Company will do it for you. See www.marlboroughsounds.co.nz (link below).

Accommodation
There is a huge range of accommodation from DOC campsites at $6 an adult to luxury lodges.

Further information
See www.doc.govt.nz or www.qctrack.co.nz (links below)