Plane from Invercargill to Stewart Island
Kakas
The town on Stewart Island (Oban)
Remnant of log hauler
We had been told that Stewart island was a cold, windy and rainy place and we had the impression that it was a stark and desolate island- after all, it is nearly sub-antarctic. Those notions were completely wrong! The island is a lush, pristine wilderness with beuatiful white sand beaches- and the birdlife is incredible. It is supposedly more similar to what New Zealand looked like before the maoris brought rats and the europeans brought stoats and possums and cleared much of the land for agriculture and introduced invasive vegetation. There are 20,000 kiwis on Stewart island (the total number of all 5 species of kiwis is 70,000)- and it is only 75 km across and has less than 400 residents (almost all of which live in the main town). 85% of the island is a national park.
The Rakiura track is one of NZ's great walks and we had three calm, sunny days for our walk. We saw about a dozen different species of wild New Zealand birds. We didn't run into any wild kiwis, but we ran into people who had done the 8-10 day walk who had seen several.
At our hotel, we had the chance to see Kakas. They are a relative of the Kea (the alpine parrot) but Kakas live in the forest. Like most NZ birds, they've been badly affected by predators which eat their eggs and chicks (and attack adults on nests), but they have strongholds on a lot of the offshore islands. The department of conservation doesn't allow people to feed Keas, but people can feed Kakas certain foods. They can become obese from over feeding, so they recommend you only feed them nuts occasionally, and stick mostly to fruit.
What a tiny plane. How long was the flight? Must've been like 20 minutes. Stewart island looks and sounds like a pretty amazing place, I bet the Chatham islands aren't the windswept hell-hole people make them out to be either. Good thing you guys went out to Stewart island and checked it out for yourselves, looks like it was a great experience.
ReplyDeleteYep- it was 20 minutes. We're glad we went- and now everything is pretty much back to normal at hope (except the university still being closed, and we are advised to boil our water- although I just accidentally drank some).
ReplyDeleteI don't know if I'd risk flying out to the Chatham islands and expect good weather- it's a pricey flight and they are sort of in the middle of the ocean- undoubtedly quite windy.
Wow! Brad even posed for some pictures!
ReplyDeleteGood to hear things are getting back to normal at home. Stewart Island looks beautiful and from your description it sounds like you really enjoyed it!
We really enjoyed it (especially cause we didn't expect it to be all that nice!)
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