Stewart Island (23.01.-27.01.2011)

When my friends Tina and Frank from back home asked me whether or not I was interested to come to Stewart Island with them, I didn’t have to think long. I have been to Stewart Island twice already but there’s no harm in visiting this beautiful place for a third time. In order to save some time we had decided to take advantage of Stewart Island Flights and took a 20 minute sightseeing flight over to the island. The weather was gorgeous and so were the views especially when approaching the island. Like last time with Tina and Frank we had booked the Rose Cottage and when we arrived there after a steep but short climb up the hilly road, I was instantly hit by memories. Everything looked the same as in 2007 and the interior hadn’t changed at all. I moved into my little room and chaos took over. With no hooks or wardrobe everything ends up on the floor and that’s where it would stay for the next few days.

Well, what is there on the island you might ask. The only town on the island is Oban so let’s call it the capital. Locals have everything they need; the general store that has fresh bread and eggs twice a week; a post office and the mail/newspapers coming in early in the morning on the first flight over from Invercargill; South Sea Hotel that serves as Hotel and Pub/ Restaurant; a café that sells handmade jewellery made from fishing gear; a takeaway; glowing sky clothing shop (and it all started out on Steward Island!); the red shed aka the Tourist Information Centre; DOC Information Centre that is especially important to all those people coming to Stewart Island to hike (either Rakiura Track or one of the Circuits); the fernery gift shop; a police station; a rugby field (unfortunately Stewart Island residents struggle putting teams together for regular matches, but one of the regulars is the annual Maori vs Pakeha match), a Presbyterian church, the church hill restaurant, quite a few lodges and cottages to accommodate all those visitors; even a YHA and many many boats. There are only a few kilometres of sealed road and a few cars that need to have a valid warrant before coming over to the island. Recently they even started offering a wee rental service for tourist tired of walking all those hills. The hills require a bit of an effort to climb but there are no other ways and so people have learned to live with them. Locals without a car mostly own bikes (can’t see where that helps because you still need to put a lot of effort in getting up there, but nevermind) or motorbikes.

As I said, Oban isn’t big at all but in order to see all the different places, bays and ‘attractions’ you need to walk a lot as they are all located at different ends of town. Or you head down to the red shed and either book the Village & Bay Tours or the taxi service, which also takes you to the most popular places. I did the first and although I had seen all those places before, I really enjoyed the tour for all the information I received from our informative guide Kylie. The insight into local life was priceless! We also did the Patterson Inlet Cruise with Stewart Island Experience on a rainy day because we wouldn’t want to spend all day walking in the rain. Again, the information we received were highly appreciated as you normally don’t get that kind of information and insight from a travel guide. We also stopped on Ulva Island, the bird sanctuary for a short guided walk. That walk wouldn’t have been enough for us as we like to explore things and take pictures, so luckily we had been to the island 2 days before and had spent almost 6 hours with watching birds and enjoying the sun at West End Beach.

My highlight of this trip was definitely the kiwi spotting tour we had booked for one evening. I had never been able to see kiwis in the wild and had only seen them in a nocturnal house and that needed changing! We booked BRAVO ADVENTURE CRUISES who have been operating for more than 20 years with an amazing success rate. In the last 2 years there was no single day without at least one kiwi to be seen on their tours! Before we left the boat and headed into the night we received some useful information about kiwis, grabbed torches and filed behind the guide on our walk through the bush. It was pitch black and completely silent as nobody dared to speak. After about 15 to 20 minutes we saw the first kiwi searching for food and I stood in awe watching the bird. She knew we were there but didn’t feel hassled and stayed. Most New Zealanders have never seen a kiwi bird in their life and probably won’t. And here I was, looking at one! After a while we left her alone and kept on going, down to Ocean Beach. The kiwis love to come out to the beach because they feed on the little sand hoppers that appear in big numbers at night time (maybe even at daytime, I don’t know actually) and so we didn’t need to walk long before we saw the second kiwi. It was a female again (they have a longer beak that’s also curved) and she also was busy searching the sand. Our guide Greg had warned us to look out for sea lions that like to hang out on the beach and that he would not want us to run into them in the dark. Fair enough I’d say! He carried a long stick to be able to defend us in an emergency but luckily there were no sea lions tonight. Later on we saw a male kiwi, that was disturbed by someone in the group couching and he ran away hastily. But on the way back we saw him again so he must have come back to his spot immediately after we had left. Time is flying when you are having fun and I assume that most of us could have easily spent some more time on the beach but we needed to head back. At 12am we arrived back at the boat and with no vision at all but his radar the skipper took us back to the wharf.

As I said before, that tour was the highlight of my Stewart Island trip and I can’t believe I haven’t done that before! When I come back to the Island, I will be back on Ocean Beach!
After 5 days on the island we flew back to Invercargill and headed straight back into Milford Sound as I needed to get back to work for the next day. Tina and Frank stayed overnight and joined a cruise the next day before they left Milford and continued to enjoy their holidays in their motorhome; off to new adventures!