Stop 7: Stewart Island

I headed to Invercargill for a few hours to catch the ferry to Stewart Island. It is the only place where you can see a kiwi bird during the day, but unfortunately I did not. While waiting in Invercargill I discovered that all the backpackers on the island are closed for winter, but I was able to get a backpacker rate at the hotel in town. Finally I had my own room, which was good since I was sick and blowing my nose nonstop.

The island has about 400 permanent residents, has the most expensive electricity and is about as far south as you can get. Not too many people stay around during winter, so it was a pretty desolate place. The hotel I was in was also one of the only open restaurants in town and the only bar open in town. Basically it was a hopping place. There were about 10 tourists on the island and, seeing as its pretty small, ran into each other all the time. What was weird is that I ran into almost all of them at some point over the next few weeks in other cities, and in bizarre places. It's fun to see people again though.

The first day I took a water taxi to Ulva Island, a bird sanctuary. Everywhere in NZ they take super care to keep animals out. There are traps everywhere and they really emphasize you check all bags and boats when you come ashore anywhere. Apparently they get about one hitchhiking animal a year. The birds were pretty cool and the views walking around the island were neat too. That night I walked out to a point on the bluff for sunset because apparently you could see penguins as they come ashore for the night, but we finally gave up because it was getting to dark to see anything even if they did come. We went back to have dinner in the bar/restaurant/hotel with the rest of the town.

The two oceans meeting

walked to the end of the peninsula for the sunset

The next day I did some hiking around with an older couple from Australia that I had become friends with. They had to turn around to catch their ferry but I kept going. Most trails here are incredibly well marked and maintained. This one was not and I started to doubt the track I was on, despite there not having been any other options.The craziest part was I'm sitting there thinking, great, I'm lost in the middle of nowhere and then all of the sudden my phone dings and I have reception.There is no reception anywhere on the island, but somehow I got it in the most remote place possible. Made me laugh.

the sinks here are super annoying. You can only get either extreme of temperature and in this one, the taps were too close to the sink and you could barely get any water at all.

the view from the front of the hotel. Not too bad.

On the side of the road we found this tree with an old phone and phonebook. Sadly it was no longer working.

I made it!

View of the town way off in the distance from the top of my hike.

That night the bar had trivia night, so the tourists made a team and lost miserably to all the others. It was kinda fun being a part of all the locals, with the ferry drivers sitting at one table and their wives at the other and the emcee making fun of all the nurses for getting the health related questions wrong.

The ferry ride back was quite rough and it was a workout stabilizing myself for a full hour. We made it safe and sound and I caught the bus out to Dunedin.