Thursday 17 March. Pyke Lodge to Martins Bay Lodge

Day 2 starts early again with our guide Graham (ably assisted by the lovely Mickey) banging on the bedroom doors at 6.45am. Continental and/or cooked breakfast of Eggs Benedict is followed by a role call at a chilly 8.00am. Get your beany hat and mitts on please. Today we only need a day pack between 2 people, but as the weather is so changable you have to be prepared. We walk north to Lake Alabaster for a kodak moment and stories of the early Maori and European settlers in this area. Then back south to the longest cable bridge in Fiordland at Pyke Swingbridge.

We are warmed up now and ready for a 1-hour jet boat ride northwest down the Hollyford River and Lake McKerrow (Whakatipu Waitai in Maori). The gods are with us and for a second day the weather is glorious with warm sunshine in the afternoon (up to 18°C). We visit the abandoned site of ill-fated Jamestown (abandoned European settlement) and then continue the 15km walk out to the point north of Martins Bay where fur seals bask on the rocks. Returning back to the sandy estuary we are once again picked up by the jet boat and taken to Martins Bay Lodge for showers, bubbles etc. You get the picture, no cold wooden bench in a walkers' hut on this tramp!