After a couple of relaxing days in Invercargill, we drove down to Bluff to pick up the ferry to Stewart Island. It was a lovely day for a one hour trip and we arrived in Oban on Half Moon Bay. This is the only town on Stewart Island. The island is quite large and about 85% of it is national park. There are a number of small islands right off the coast, with water shuttles that will take you out to various islands or beaches.

The ferry ride to Stewart Island

Half Moon Bay on Stewart Island

We arrived midday and went to see if the backpackers/hostel we were to stay in for four nights was ready for us. Rob, the manager, was not around and a young, German woman told us to come back in a couple of hours, which we did. Rob was still nowhere to be seen but we were put in a postage-sized room on the second floor, up some very steep and uneven stairs. The room was big enough for a bed and nothing more, and was stifling hot with only one window. So we dumped our stuff and went out for a short walk that took us through town and down to Golden Bay. When we returned again, we mentioned that we hadn’t yet seen Rob and someone pointed out a young man completely passed out in the living room, totally oblivious to the crowd and noise around him. We actually never saw him conscious. We made our dinner in the communal kitchen and retired to our stifling room. Upstairs, we found that there was absolutely no light in either the stairway or the upstairs hall and that the bathroom was downstairs. And no obvious exit in case of fire, other than the bad, dark stairway. The young people at the hostel were still up and drinking whiskey downstairs past 3 a.m. Needless to say, we didn’t get much sleep that night. By 8:30 the next morning, I had gotten us a room at a very nice motel just around the corner – thank heavens!

The Bunkers Backpacker.  Our room was the upper left window.  What a pit.  Sorry, no picture of Rob passed out on the couch.  That would have been great.  Wish I had thought of it.

This was our room at the Backpacker.  Note the sloped ceiling.  I could not get in or out of bed without hitting my head.

Our “NEW’ place.  Much better.

The bedroom had just a tad more space.  NO MORE BACKPACKERS!

Check out this video of a Kea that came to visit me on the deck of our new place.

The next day, we went over to the national park visitor center to see what our hiking options were. Unfortunately, to actually get to the park, you needed to walk over 4 miles on pavement each way to get to any hikes in the park, or pay $30 each person each way for a shuttle. So we came all the way to Stewart Island and didn’t get to any of the hikes in the park. Instead, we walked up the road to a lovely beach, and then back down a coastal cliff trail back to town, about 9 miles total, and most of it on road.

We did a couple of local hikes that we could reach within a short walk from town.  This is horseshoe bay.  Quit lovely in spite of the rain.

There was a little stream that flowed across horseshoe beach.  The beach had some dark grains of sand that the flowing water made look a little like marble.  Well I thought it was kind of cool so I got “artsy” with the camera.

This island is so very lush. This will give you an idea of what these hikes were like.  Very thick undergrowth.

A tiny, secluded beach along our hike back from horseshoe bay.

Just a view from along our hike.

That night, the first of our three main events began. Around 9 pm, we got on a boat with about 15 other people to take a 45 minute boat ride to a dock on the other side of Stewart Island. We were each given a flashlight and walked about 1/2 mile through the bush to a beach. By the time we got there, it was dark and we were instructed to not use our flashlights on the beach. Our guide used his light, looking for the elusive kiwi bird that comes to the beach at night to dig around with its long beak to find insects and other delicacies. The nostrils are at the very end of the beak to smell for dinner, as their eyesight is very poor. We watched two kiwis methodically rooting around in the sand but the second was scared off by one of our noisy tourists. We then tramped back in the dark to the boat and then motored back, arriving about midnight.

I know it’s a terrible picture but it’s the only one I have.  We were not allowed to use flash as it frightens the birds and as Barb said above, only our guide used his flashlight.  You could see the bird quite well with the naked eye.  It was very cool.  Oh and this was the same beach that David Attenborough used for his kiwi segment.  We are following in the footsteps of my hero.  🙂

The next morning we were up at 6 a.m. to walk back to Golden Bay to meet our next tour group.  There were about a dozen of us, many the same as the prior night’s excursion, and we were put in a water shuttle to go over to Ulva Island, a bird sanctuary.  NZ has a major problem with stoats, ferrets, rats and feral cats killing their bird life.  So the government has targeted certain islands to trap and kill them and re-introduce endangered birds.  Our guide was a lovely and knowledgeable woman, actually named Ulva, and we saw a lot of birds.  It was our first trip with serious birders and it was a bit amusing to see the frenzy that a few of these birds caused.  It clearly takes some skill to be able to spot some of these birds and Spencer and I were clearly not up to snuff.  But we saw enough to really enjoy the morning and we actually have now purchased a CD with NZ bird calls, so that we have a better idea of what is around.

Saddleback

New Zealand Pigeon.  These birds, we learned are very important in the spreading of the seeds of native plants.

A parent Weka and it’s chick.  This parent was tearing up the beach looking for insects.  It was kind of funny, sand, sea weed and sticks flying in every direction as it hunted.

At midday, we were picked up at Ulva Island by yet another boat, to spend the afternoon at sea looking for pelagic birds.  The young skipper was really into showing us the various sea birds and had a bin of fish heads that he held up with tongs as the boat motored along.  There were loads of albatross and petrels following along, waiting for the fish heads to be thrown up.  The albatross would literally fly right next to us, arm’s distance away, so we got amazing views of them in flight.  We can now identify 4 different types of albatross and a few other random birds.  We also motored around to see some penguins.  We saw both Blue penguins and yellow-eyed penguins swimming in the water.  This was one of the ah-ha moments for me.  I realized that I had never seen (or noticed) a picture of penguins swimming on top of the water, which is how they spend most of their time.  Usually the pictures show them standing on land, or diving under water.  Much to my amazement, they actually look like sea birds when they swim on top of the water, like a loon but with more body submerged.  Who knew?  We also spotted a sad looking, lone crested Fiordland penguin in molt.  Most of his type had long  since gone back to sea.  When they molt, they’re stuck on land for 2-3 weeks, and that seems to be the case for this one.  We got back around 5 pm and were exhausted – way too much fun.

Sooty Shearwater

I’m not sure what this one is called.

Stewart Island Shags

White capped Albatross

Cape Petrel

Bullers Albatross – Barbs favorite.

White capped in the front and a Royal Albatross in the back.  We were told the Royal is the largest of all Albatross

 

You have to check this video out.  This was a highlight for me.  Especially when the birds were flying alongside the boat.  The were within arms reach.  At on point I tried to reach out and touch this one but he was too quick for me.  If he had not been I would have been successful.  That is how close they were.

Here’s the lone, molting Crested Fiordland penguin.

We also saw this Yellow Eyed penguin swim ashore and waddle across the beach to its nest.

The weather for both days had been grey with some drizzle and no real sun.  But it got much worse that night and by the next morning, we were enveloped in fog.  We hopped on the 8 a.m. ferry to Bluff and by the time we were half way there, the fog had burned off and it was a lovely day.  We did a few errands, like paying a parking ticket, in Invercargill, had a great breakfast at the Batch, and then headed out again on the Southern Scenic Route.  We drove along the coast, with some beautiful views and beaches, to Tuatapere, and then turned around to head back to Riverton, to the night’s B & B accommodations.  We stayed with Gay, a very friendly 70 year old woman, whose husband was in a home with Alzheimer’s, and she clearly enjoyed the company of her guests.  The room was great – she had been doing this for 20 years and provided anything and everything a guest would want, including electrical chargers, beer and wine.  We had a really fine dinner overlooking the bay at a local restaurant and then back for a good night’s rest before heading out to Te Anau the next day.

I did not take any pictures of Gay’s house or of Riverton.  The only picture I have is of the sea and of course a few sheep that I took on our little walk before heading Gay’s B & B.