The Bay of Many Coves is an exclusive resort nestled around an inlet of the Queen Charlotte Sound at the northern tip of New Zealand's South Island. I'm staying here for a travel article and can't quite believe my luck as the water taxi pulls in towards the jetty. Under the clear blue skies and overlooking the aqua blue water it is a kind of paradise.
Straight away I take out a kayak to explore the little jetties and coves. No, wait, first I go to my private cabin to take in the view of the cove from the king-size double bed and to set up the balcony shot for facebook.
Then I go for a paddle. There's a cliff dotted with Shags, or Cormorants, and I discover that the Sound boasts one of only two breeding colonies of King Cormorants in the world. From my kayak I observe Spotted, Pied and Black Shags, but no royalty.
Later on Pip, the manager, books me in for a massage and a tiny girl called Richelle gives me her signature treatment with peppermint and lemongrass oils and a touch so effectively firm I'm a blob of jelly when I emerge. I can barely make it down the few steps to my cabin. I order dinner via room service, at Pip's suggestion. I watch The Piano again. It's set in the Westland where I was a few days ago, though much of it was filmed in the North Island. What a great film. Made all the better by a slab of ginger slice I bought in Picton before I left. It's a type of millionaire's shortbread but with ginger and it is heaven on a biscuit base.
My favourite root puts in another appearance the following morning by way of a tasty Granny Smith apple and ginger juice. I'm not going to starve, as you can tell by the average breakfast here.
I wake up in time for sunrise one morning and it's something I'll never forget, so serene, such food for the soul.
Disturbing my nirvana a short while later is a thud in the other room. A bird has flown into the glass window of my living room and landed on the floor of the balcony, dead as a doornail. I think it's a Bellbird (Korimako), which is sad because they make the most beautiful sound in the mornings.
I am gradually discovering more about New Zealand's efforts to protect and regenerate its native flora and fauna. This mainly happens in the national parks where pines are being taken out and indigenous species reintroduced. The Bay of Many Coves resort commits to sowing native bush – including Nikau palms, Silver Ponga, Mamuku, Renga Renga Lily and Miniature Flax – and eradicating non-natives to ensure the native birds have a welcome habitat. The water that comes out the taps is drinkable, delicious spring water from just up the hill.
James Cook was the first European to land on New Zealand soil, at Meretoto, which he renamed Ship's Cove, making it his NZ base between 1770 and 1777. The first sustained contacts between Maori and Pakeha took place around Totaranui, which Cook duly renamed after George 111's queen, Charlotte. It all happened here. Moreover, Ship's Cove is where one of New Zealand's great walks begins, the 71km Queen Charlotte Track. I'm walking a section of it today. A water taxi picks me up from the resort's jetty, piloted by Fred and crewed by Northern Irish Garth, whose years of living in NZ have seamlessly transformed his accent into a quasi-Canadian one, which is why I mistakenly ask him whereabouts in Canada he's from.
Fred is genial and gives us a wry commentary along the way. I'm dropped off, with four others, in Resolution Bay (named after Cook's second ship). There's a friendly looking local (possibly the only inhabitant here) with a little terrier scurrying about. It's odd being dropped off for a walk by boat. You feel a strange sense of loneliness as you see it disappear into the Sound. You're on your own. What do I do if I have an accident, I ask Fred, call someone on my mobile phone? You won't get a signal, he replies. Oh. But I'm reassured by the fact that I know the group we dropped off at Ship's Cove earlier will be coming my way eventually. 
The track is a delight, as you'd expect from a route that gets tramped by thousands of pairs of boots every year – a wide path with little windows out to the Sound, and it's an easy climb up to the saddle.
The bush is probably mostly native here though I do come across some black trees, which I guess have been poisoned. Among native trees is the tall Tawa but it is the pines that were planted extensively here due to a Government subsidy that the Department of Conservation is trying to eradicate now. With a pine forest there isn't the undergrowth that makes the bush so interesting and encourages wildlife to flourish. It seems bullishly single minded to destroy trees while calling it conservation, though. At the end of the day, I might favour a live-and-let-live approach. After all, who can control birds that carry seeds or seeds that blow in on the wind? I'm all for keeping the native birdlife thriving, however, particularly when you have curious creatures such as the Weca trying to get at your lunch.
As I wind my way down to the pick-up point at Endeavour Inlet, there are last glimpses of the greater Sound, where the green land appears to have been poured onto the blue in thick folds. Down at sea level there are Pohutukawa or Southern Rata, commonly known as the New Zealand Christmas tree because it flowers in winter.
I'm not sure this is one of those, but it's red and it's flowering!
As signs of habitation appear around the corner of Endeavour Inlet there are rickety old boathouses, Furneaux Lodge – a heritage hotel where walkers can rest their weary limbs, and a shaggy dog driving a John Deere.
I leave my idyll at the Bay of Many Coves on Queen Charlotte Sound with a sigh, as the clouds roll in and the weather begins to turn autumnal. 
As I get set to sail from the South to the North Island a leaping dolphin provides a very special send-off.
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