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).

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!

To Stewart Island

 

We drove to Bluff in the morning to catch the ferry over to Stewart Island.   It's a passenger ferry only so we left our van in the ferry parking lot and carried our suitcases onto the boat.

Leaving Bluff

We thought we'd hang out on the back deck and look for birds and dolphins but the sea was really rough, we got soaked in a minute and retreated inside. 

It was a good thing we'd taken Gravol before we left.  

It was an hour across to Oban the only town on the Island, then we walked a few blocks to our room at the Stewart Island Backpackers

Our block of rooms at the Backpackers

A lot of customers were doing the 3-day Rakiura Track. The plastic buckets under the benches are for your muddy boots.

Our room was pretty basic:  2 beds, a tiny bedside table, and a charger for our devices (very important as we didn't have a AC converter.  Toilets were down the hall. There was also a very busy kitchen and a large lounge.

What you get for $110 NZ, we repurposed a boot container as a bedside table. 

Next we headed for lunch at the Old Butchershop Café.  Leo had eggs Benedict and I had a salmon bagel.

This Paradise shelduck was just hanging out at the harbour.

After lunch we hiked out to Acker's Point.  On the trail we saw the usual forest birds - tui, gerigone, bellbirds.

At the point there's a Sooty shearwater colony.

All the holes are shearwater nests.

And from the point we could see a flock of shearwaters and white-fronted terns (lifer) feeding on a school of fish.  We also saw an Australasian gannet fly by.  Not a lifer as we have seen these in Australia.

There was a fishing boat off the point with a pile of white-capped albatross (lifer) hanging around.

White-fronted Albatross and silver gulls

Hah, we thought, we endured 4 hour of a pelagic trip off Chile to see albatross and here they are just off the shore.

On the way back we came to Harrold Bay where we found the oldest European dwelling on Stewart Island.

Lewis Acker lived here with his Maori wife and nine children.  And this is the lovely view from their house:

Then we walked back to town.

Road back to town

We'd been told that Kiwi often come out onto the rugby fields after dark 

Oban harbour

So at dusk we headed up there but had no luck.  We did see a kaka (parrot) fly overhead.

Decorative abalone shells at the harbour

We were hoping to see red-crowned parakeets, found only on Stewart Island, but no luck there either.  

But the welcome swallow was happy to welcome us to Oban harbour

A Day in Invercargill

The next morning we we drove into Invergcargill to check out the downtown.  Their main street, Dee Street, is looking a little downtrodden but this Sunday morning the cafes were buzzing with people.

We checked out the city's iconic Victorian water tower still in use as a backup today.

Then we walked through Otakaro park where we came across this umbrella sculpture.

It's both a sundial and it shows the location of the stars over Invercargill.

Of course we had to stop for a coffee and a date scone.  

This was the cafe of Langlands Hotel and a bit upscale from our usual NZ bakery.  Just as we were leaving the cafe it started pouring buckets.  So we had to take a break from exp,orange the city.

When the rain stopped we drove on to Queen's Park site of a small zoo with emus, alpaca, goats and other barnyard animals.

But the pride of Queen's Park is its 135 year old tuatara named Henry.  Tuataras are the last species of an ancient type of reptile not related to lizards or snakes.

Tuatara enclosure

There are other tuataras living here

And not all of them are made of concrete.  But none as old as Henry.

And here's Henry

We were delighted to meet him and then we beat a hasty retreat to the Cheeky Llama, the park's cafe, for lunch.

They make an excellent sweet potato soup.  Fun fact:  Sweet potatoes originated in South America and the Maori were cultivating them when Europeans arrived.  The Maori name for sweet potato is kumara and the Quechua (of Peru) name is kumar!

Our next plan  was to walk the Estuary Boardwalk but just as we parked the van a terribly blown rainstorm began.  We ran back to the van and headed back to the caravan park.  One might say we Amble(d) on Inn.  Nice campground with a duck pond right next to the camping area.

Waituna Reserve

We'd hoped to go back to the Orokunui reserve again in the morning but it was chucking down rain so we headed south to our next destination, Invercargill, at the foot of the South Island, and home to Waituni wetland, one of the 50 best birdwatching sites of New Zealand, according to our book.

So as soon as we secured our spot at the Amble on Inn Holiday Park we headed that way.

On our way in we spotted a bird with white tail feathers fly across the road. My first thought was a (introduced) skylark but it also could have been a New Zealand pipit. Impossible to tell with that short glimpse.

Carolyn II at the wetland parking area

There was only one other vehicle there so we had the loop trail to ourselves.

Leo heads down the loop trail

No wonder.  The skies were pretty gloomy.

The first thing we saw was the uncommon dark morph of the new Zealand fantail. 

We only saw 3 of these guys during the whole trip and we saw many, many fantails.

Here's the regular version of the fantail for comparison.

Not long after out popped a reputedly shy and retiring fernbird.  Not this one; it stayed around and posed for pictures.

New Zealand Fernbird, endemic, lifer 

Bird of the Day!

Pretty ferns

We were halfway through this 4 km track when it started to rain. Leo got pretty wet!