Rakiura: Sky glowing red

Hey it’s me again!

The Around Lake Brunner race was followed by only three days of work and then early Thursday morning Ayaka, Rachel and I left for Stewart Island. Stewart Island is the island located below the South Island. As a lunch stop we paid a visit to the Cadbury Chocolate Factory in Dunedin where we couldn’t resist to taste bits and pieces along the way, but thankfully no angry umpa lumpas who kept us locked up in the factory. That afternoon we arrived at Catlins National Park in the far South of the South Island and enjoyed the ruggedness of this coastal area and spotted my first yellow eyed penguin! Pretty awesome!

The next morning it was an early rise to get to Bluff and onto the ferry to Stewart Island. Thankfully only an hour and Foveaux Street wasn’t too choppy, but I still didn’t feel too happy, so was relieved when we arrived at the island. We stayed at a very nice motel unit (it’s great when you’re working for a tour operator and can use the ‘excuse’ of testing new destinations!) and after we had dumped our luggage it was time for a bit of a hike. 85% of Stewart Island consists of Rakiura National Park. Rakiura is Maori for ‘Sky glowing red’ and that was proven the next day when we got to see a beautiful sunrise! Our hike started at the anchor of Maui. Moari myths tell the story of Maui who hauled up New Zealand from the ocean. The North Island is the fish that Maui caught, the South Island his canoe (waka) and Rakiura (Stewart Island) the anchor. In European history Captain Cook was first to sail by the island, but he couldn’t decide whether it was an island or peninsula, he decided it was the latter and called it South Cape. (quite happy that it’s not just the Dutch explorers who mistake countries/islands for what they really are!) How Stewart got involved in the naming of the island isn’t completely sure, but the First officer of the vessel that was first to sail around the island in 1809 was called William Stewart, so I think it’s pretty likely to him!

After we got back from the hike we had real Stewart Island dinner: Fish and Chips wrapped in a newspaper on the beach! We had eat rather quickly, because we were going on a kiwi spotting tour at 5.30pm. We had a short boat trip to one of the many surrounding islands and had to change into a dinghy to go ashore. It started to get dark, so armed with a torch we continued our bushwalk to spot some kiwi birds. Stewart Island is one of the few places in NZ where you have a chance of seeing wild kiwis. The Stewart Island Kiwi is also the only one of its species that comes out during daytime. But anyways, armed with our torch it took only 15min before spotting our first kiwi and two metres further down was another one. It is not very common to see them together and it was pretty amazing to see them in their natural environment. They weren’t scared of us at all, they just kept on picking away in the soil with their long beaks. They’re pretty big, like large chickens. After some time of admiring these two we continued our search and this time on the beach. Now I know that we were looking for kiwis, but honestly, I couldn’t help just staring at the millions of stars in the sky. It was absolutely breathtaking. I might have tripped over a few kiwis without realising, haha! No, we found one frolicking on the beach and on our way back another two in the bush. It was a pretty good catch and now I belong to that 5% of New Zealanders that has ever seen a wild kiwi.....Except for the fact that I am not a New Zealander (yet...).....

The next day we had booked two boat trips (again, it's great when you can use the company's name and get great discounts!), one in a sort of submarine/glass bottom boat so we could have a look at the beautiful clear water and marine life that surrounds Stewart Isl. This was pretty cool. When the propellers were going full speed loads of bubbles came by the windows and it was like sitting in a washing machine, although I have never really tried that before! The next boat trip was a guided trip around Paterson Inlet, one of the many bays and a one hour guided walk on Ulva Island. Ulva Island is famous for its abundant birdlife and having a bird geek as a guide definitely made this trip worthwhile. We saw quite a bit of birds; Stewart Island Robin, Fantail, Kereru, Kakariki, Bellbird, Tuí, Tomtit, Weka and a South Island Saddleback. You still with me?? Haha!! Was very nice though!

That evening we went to the pub for dinner (after trying the two restaurants that Stew Isl has, who were both fully booked!) and that was a great experience! Most Stew Islanders are fishermen, so lots of rough looking men wearing wellies/gumboots (regenlaarzen), shorts and woollen sweaters. We figured that they must have come back from their trips at 5 and started drinking straight away, because when we arrived at 8 there were quite a few red noses and loud voices already! The group sitting next to us got out a guitar and started singing songs, haha, pretty cool experience!

The next morning we went for a sea kayaking trip and this was beautiful! Along the way we had some Blue Penguins popping up in the water around us, so that was very cute! After we had our picnic we wanted to paddle back on the lovely calm waters, but all of a sudden the wind had picked up, so it was a bit of a choppy paddle going back to the boat shed, but we managed to get back and probably gave our arm muscles a fair training! After our lunch it was time to say goodbye to Stewart Island and armed with a few pills in my stomach we headed back on the ferry! I am still not sure whether it is the pills or just the idea of having had those pills that kept me happy during this boat ride, but I felt fine! We did the trip home in one go, swapping drivers and I think that during the 3 hours that I was driving I only had about 30 oncoming cars.... Crazy how quiet the roads are here! Anyways, we safely made it back to Christchurch around 1.30am and the next morning it was back to work!

Right, I could write more, but will save that for another update this weekend or so, because it’s just getting a bit too much. Hope you’re all doing okay and catch ya later!
Xx