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To Milford Sound

 

We caught the 8 am ferry back to the main land.  We'd forgotten to bring Gravol but the seas were pretty calm and it worked out fine.

On our way to Lake Te Anau

After collecting our van  Weheaded northwest for Milford Sound.  It was all flat cow and sheep Ranching country till we reached Lake Te Anau.

We reached the Department of Conservation campsite at Cascade Creek early in the afternoon to find it not busy at all and got a prime spot on the creek. After our experience at Mt. Cook we'd made sure we had a reservation.

DoC campsites provide outhouses, a covered shelter, non-potable water in this case, and a few picnic tables but certainly not a picnic table at every site.  By evening the campsite was full and there was a long line of vans parked next to us.  You can see the white markers on the photo above that show how close the sites are.  

Down the road was a nature trail through a red beach forest.

Lots of big trees

Of course with such big trees we could hear the birds above us but couldn't spot them so high up in the canopy.

We ran into this family. The little girl had a box painted with pictures of insects and the robin was trying to eat them!

In the evening this tree across the creek from our campsite was full of birds.

We saw pipipi (also called brown creeper) and rifleman (actually more like our North American brown creeper), fantails, and chaffinches. Robins were flitting around the van and even weka came trotting by.

What passes for gourmet campfare:  tortellini, carrots and coleslaw.

Ulva Island

On our last day on Stewart Island we walked over to the Golden Bay wharf to catch the water taxi over to Ulva Island.

Golden Bay Wharf

 

Ulva is a predator-free island so they're serious about keeping them off the island.

There were no rats in our backpack!

It's just a five minute boat ride over.  We followed a network of trails around the island.

The trees are much taller than on Stewart Island as it's never been logged. It's been a reserve since 1892.

Every time we stopped at a bench, a South Island Robin would come out to greet us.

We came out on some pretty beaches.

We managed to see some birds we hadn't come across before:

South Island saddleback, Bird of the Day!

Yellowhead

And there were kaka flying around.

At one point the trail comes out on a beach.  You walk down the beach and get back on the trail at the other end.  They warn you about the sea lions.

We came out on the beach and there was a sea lion.

I immediately headed down the beach but Leo stopped to take pictures.  The sea lion started coming for him.

We hightailed it to the other end of the beach.  A school group came along from the other direction and couldn't access the rest of the trail.  They had to turn back. 

Pretty seaweed

Everyone we ran into on the trail said they'd seen weka, but we weren't having any luck.

But then we came across one bumbling down the trail, paying no attention to us.

And walked right by us.

And then we saw two or three more.

Nice moss

Big trees! 

Back in town we heard that little penguins could be seen at the wharf at dusk so we walked down in the evening and saw about 5 of them swimming into shore.  Too dark for pictures.

Stewart Island - Beaches and Kiwis

In the morning we walked the road over to Golden Bay

Golden Bay 

 and then  hiked back to town on a trail that followed the shore.  

We saw the usual forest birds and eventually popped out at Ringaringa Road which we followed back into town.

Note penguin crossing sign

We stopped for lattes and a goodie at the Snuggery just down the street from the Backpackers.

Then we headed out of town in the other direction, past Bathing Beach, which sounds inviting but it really wasn't the weather for it.  We crossed a bridge over a creek which made a little estuary where it hit the beach, and here we saw a white-faced heron in the grass.

Then we had great views of a sacred kingfisher but no photos.  Not a lifer as we've seen these in Australia.

And a little shag (Little pied cormorant)

Variable oystercatchers in their non-variable form

A kelp gull.

The heron flew over to the beach side of the road.

Supposedly kiwis do come out during the day on Stewart Island but this is the closest we came so far:

We started up the trail with some beautiful views of tranquil bays.

The beauty of invasive Shasta Daisy

Came across a giant Monterey Cypress (introduced).

But soon we had to turn around because we had to be at the wharf at 6 pm for our Kiwi hunting tour.

When we got to the wharf we saw all these white-capped albatrosses floating about.

We walked all the way to Anker Point to see albatrosses when they were just floating around the wharf!

Our tour caravan showed up, a smaller version of the ferry that brought us to Stewart Island.

We headed off

Our first stop was the Foveaux cormorant colony.  Leo's camera battery had died so we're stuck with our cellphone photos.

Foveaux colony. White stuff is guano.

We were able  to check the Foveaux cormorant off our lists(Lifer!) but really they just looked like cormorants (apparently they have pink feet).

Note pink feet

Next was an island full of fur seals.

You can spot a few of them in this picture.

There were lots of the baby seals many of them frolicking in a big pool. It did look more impressive through the binoculars.

Next we visited a pied cormorant colony in Snuggery Cove of Ulva Island (more about that tomorrow).  Fun fact: the Snuggery Cafe we ate at this morning is named after this cove.

Then to a beach full of sea lions lazing about.  We were informed that you can run into them in the forest! Yikes!

An then finally, as dusk fell, we came to Little Glory Beach on Stewart Island where we started our Kiwi hunt. We were issued a torch and instructed to only shine it on the ground not around us.  We were told not to rustle our rain jackets and to be very quiet. We were told if we ran into a sea lion we would have to turn around and go. Yikes! We all got in a line with a guide at each end.  They had infrared scopes for spotting the kiwis in the dark and red flashlights.  Then we crept along the trail.  We walked and walked and walked.  

At one point our guide shocked me by picking a bunch of orchid flowers she came across and letting us smell them.  Oh well, she's Maori, it's her country.  

There was a short view of a kiwi but only a few at the front saw it.  We continued to walk and walk.   We did a hear a male/female call and response which was cool (and funny!).   Finally a kiwi showed up and with the red light on him just bumbled through the bush

Southern Brown Kiwi, Lifer

for about 10 minutes digging around for food.  It walked by the line of us on the trail and came right up to one fellow.  

These photos are screenshots from a video that our seatmate Caro kindly shared with us.  

After our great sighting we moved onto a beach where kiwi are known to forage.  The guides spotted a sea lion far down the beach with their infrared scopes but it was too far away to worry about.  We had no luck with the kiwis and returned to the boat. 

The guides were very happy with our view of the kiwi and everyone was very excited by the experience.  A highlight of our trip and, of course, the Bird of the Day!