Left to my own devices on Stewart Island

On Saturday Keith got up early to do the Rakiura Track, which is 36 kilometers long. While most people do the track in three days, Keith is not most people and did it in two days. For this reason, I slept in and spent the day on my own instead of tramping as fast as I could through the mud!

Even though I was on my own I was not completely lazy! The rainy morning on the Island meant that I had the day hiking trails to myself, which was lovely! There are a huge numbers of birds on Stewart Island as well as Ulva Island and my favorite bird the tui was all over the place while I was hiking on Saturday and it was hard to think that R2-D2 was following me and to not smile every time I heard them!

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While I was hiking, drizzle turned into rain turned into incredibly windy and pouring down, so eventually I had to go inside, but I really didn't want to miss out on anything on the island!

From New Zealand

Luckily in the afternoon the sun finally came out!

From New Zealand

From New Zealand

That evening, while the sun was still out, I made it up to Observation Rock, which is supposed to be a good place to watch both sunrise and sunset. While I was up there is was clear there wouldn't be a great sunset, but it was so quiet and peaceful I stayed for almost an hour watching the light change. I was shocked that not another person came up there the whole time I was there since the point is only 1 kilometer from the only town on the island, Oban!

From New Zealand

From New Zealand

Hopefully Keith has time to blog his hike soon! But the family (Jean, Colleen, and Randy) are officially in the country and they'll be in Alex tomorrow, so I think we'll be a little busy for a few days!

The Birds

I've always had this fantasy that if I was alive in the time of the great explorers that I would have hitched myself to one of them and sailed around the unknown world. After the one hour crossing from Bluff to Stewart Island, I rescind this fantasy.

The hour long crossing to get to Stewart Island wasn't even in rough weather! It was really windy and there were giant swells and whitecaps, but it was a beautiful sunny day. The first half hour went pretty well but then there was that one huge swell and I almost lost it, but didn't-thankfully! I guess it was just mild sea sickness, but really that was enough! After what seemed like the longest hour of my life, we got to Stewart Island and I never wanted to get back on the ferry ever again!

We got to the island at about lunch time, so after lunch and dropping our bags at the backpackers place we were staying it was time to go out and explore the island. We had hoped to rent a sea kayak and kayak to Ulva Island that afternoon, but the one person who rents kayaks was gone for the day (of course!) so we took a short water taxi ride to Ulva Island.

Ulva Island is a predator free island sanctuary for native plants and birds live in a safe environment. I can't say Keith and I have ever been birding before, but that is pretty much what we were doing-keeping our eyes and ears peeled for the large number of birds that live on the island.

The bird we saw the most (and had come across before) was the weka, that always seemed to be following us as we walked down the beaches.

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We also had seen these little robins before-they also like to get really close to people like the weka do-they are so cute!

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Unfortunately I didn't get a good shot of my favorite bird on the island: the tui. I mainly love the tui because their bird call sound almost exactly like R2-D2, which is just awesome! We saw just about every bird on the island, except the kiwi bird which is nocturnal and almost never seen.

Hiking and bird watching were not the only thing to keep me entertained on the island, Keith also had to show off the guns!

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On the water taxi ride back to the main island we came across three Mollymawks (these are considered medium sized albatrosses) that felt like putting on a show for our boat. This does no justice as to how big these are!

From New Zealand

From New Zealand

So far the trip to Stewart Island was living up to the hype!