Stewart Island

11-14 April, 2026. In summary: Glad we went to satisfy our curiosity. Unfortunately, didn't see any kiwi and not much star gazing due to bad weather.

April 11 - Get to Stewart Island. Visit Ulva Island.

Today was an early morning where we cleaned up the AirBnB and drove the hour back to Bluff to catch the ferry to Oban.

The ferry ride is about an hour. The sky was quite grey and threatening. The crossing was uneventful.

Even though it was around 10am the sky was quite red. This was because we were quite far South, the angle of light, and also meaning a front was moving in (red sky at morning....)

Oban is on Half Moon Bay in Stewart Island. Stewart Island is known as "The Third Island" of New Zealand. Half Moon Bay reminds me of Half Moon Bay in California, only smaller and with the potential to see wild Kiwi Birds.

We stayed at The Bay Hotel and had a kind of "suite" with cooking facilities that saved us quite of bit of money on breakfast.

We still ate each night at the South Sea Hotel which was just about the only restaurant on the island. We had nothing that was even remotely appetising here. More on that later.

We quickly got some food and walked over to Golden Bay to catch the water taxi to Ulva Island.

Ulva Island is a totally protected sanctuary with only native animals on it - meaning only birds (and seals, I guess - see below). The water taxi was only about a 10 minute ride and we were able to squeeze on an earlier taxi.

We decided not to do the guided walk and used the free tourist center guide. We were still having guided walk fatigue from 7 weeks of guided walks. A note about pricing - we saw the same guide for sale in other stores for up to NZ$3. The local grocery store was selling "Kiwi conversion kits" for .50. Basically this was a piece of red cellophane and a rubber band that you put over the light on your phone to keep from blinding any kiwis you might see. These Kiwi kits were also free at the tourist center.

We ended up walking everywhere you could walk on the island, which turned out to be about 3.2 miles. We heard a lot of birdsong, but Merlin couldn't identify most of it.

We were lucky to see a couple Parakeets and enjoyed watching them. The good picture isn't mine, but it gives you a good idea of what the birds should look like

We found out by accident that this is a mast year (beech trees blooming). This only happens once every about 6 or 7 years when the trees communicate with each other that it's time to bloom.

At lunch we were visited by a friendly Tomtitt (and Buni) looking for handouts.

We did see one seal

and found out, by accident, there was a baby seal somewhere. About ten people were searching for it to tag it and they were looking through the forest about 100 feet off the beach. We're not sure if they every found it.

There was a mystery bird, probably some kind of thrush. I can't find a name anywhere, can any of you?

We also heard a lot of bell birds, but they weren't as loud as those we heard on our hike near Ivercargill.

That evening I tried Third Island Vodka in a very strong vodka tonic. The alcohol (beer and the vodka tonic) was probably the best thing I had here over the entire time on the Island.

For dinner I ordered some wontons and the fish special. It turned out the wontons had sea snail filling. Sea snail was the one thing I would not eat in Japan because it was so tough. Chris had fish and chips which weren't too bad. Basically, my dinner was disgusting.

The fish had a bunch of tomato sauce and capers on it and it destroyed the taste. The Affogato for dessert was pretty good though.

April 12 - First day off since January.

The sunrise was very pretty

After a very lazy morning we walked into town to see the museum. It was quite a nice museum, if a bit over priced at NZ$10 each.

We rested in the afternoon and went out for dinner where we saw quite a nice double rainbow.

Dinner was bean nachos - not made any better even in my rose tinted photo.

And then went hunting for Kiwi. We didn't see any, but the stars came out a bit, we walked up to a view point in the dark and had some nice viewing.

April 13 - Hiking Port William back to Half Moon Bay.

We caught the 8:30 water taxi to Port William.

This is about a 20 minute ferry ride. We saw an island full of Pied Cormorants along the way. I thought they were penguins.

The hike was along a well maintained undulating path through a rain forest and along the coast. It was about 8.7 miles with an elevation gain of 1,750 feet.

We started off along a beach and then over a ridge to a bridge at Maori Beach, about half way along.

This beach was really quite nice because of the pinkish sand and some really nice shells. There were also some pied oyster catchers walking along.

We continued undulating through the forest. There were abandon logging areas - logging was a big part of the history of this Island.

There were two areas where we had to divert due to high tide.

until we got to the end of the path and had a snack. There was this sculpture at the end - a similar one was at the point off Bluff that we saw a few days before.

Then we had 3 miles of road walking back to Half Moon Bay (Oban) - where we were staying. This was pretty boring, but we got there soon enough and missed most of the rain.

There was quite a big Tui bird sitting on top of a tree.

Dinner was a pizza which looked much better than it tasted.

We are now at our furthest Southerly position. Tomorrow we start our journey North to Dunedin where we will be for a week and that is when I plan to post again.