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!

Takahe, Kaka and Albatross

 

We started the day at the Orokonui Ecosanctuary, a more upscale version of the wildlife sanctuary we visited on the Banks Peninsula.  They have a predator-proof fence and are raising ends geared birds brought in from elsewhere.

Predator proof fence

When you first enter you come across the endangered takahe.  They were very tame and were tottering over to visit us when they heard a gate being opened by their keeper and waddled over to visit him.  

They are a larger and weirder version of the pukeko we saw the other day.

Bird of the Day!

Leo's pretty sure he saw a kiwi disappear under a boardwalk but he didn't know it at the time and thought it might be a rabbit.

We spent hours wandering down the steep hillside trails and then hours climbing up again, admiring the big trees.

They had feeders set up so Leo was able to get a good shot of the ubiquitous New Zealand bellbird which is usually hiding high in the canopy.

New Zealand Bellbird

At another feeder there was a group of about 5 kakas raising a ruckus.

We were excited to see our first tui, a new Zealand endemic (and lifer).  There were lots of them wheezing and grunting wheezing and grunting in the trees but most of the photos looked like this:

But it shows the iridescent feathers

Later we saw a juvenile at a feeder that posed for a better picture.

A pair of South Island robins popped out onto the trail to greet us:

Lifer!

 It turns out they weren't just pleased to see us.  They are after the insects our shuffling feet stir up.

After our hike we lunched in the reserve's very attractive cafe with a great view down the valley.

In the afternoon we drove out to Taiaroa Head on the Otago Peninsula, the site of the only royal albatross colony that's located on an isolated island.  

For $70 you can access the observatory looking over the colony and see the Albatross nests up close.

While we waited for our time slot we wandered around the silver gull colony next door. A bunch of almost mature chicks were waiting around for their parents to bring home lunch.

Here an adult regurgitated fishy material for her chick.  Appetizing!

Our tour consisted of an introductory film about the albatrosses. Unfortunately, I can't tell you much about it since I slept through most of it.  Then they walked us up to the glassed-in observatory.  

Loving couple and their chick

To be honest I was a little disappointed. I expected a crowded colony of hundreds of birds. Instead we got views of about 3-4 nests.  They were pretty amazing though.  Big giant piles of fluff. Think of the fee as a donation to protect the species.

The adults raise their chicks for a full year before maturity.  They said there were about 34 nests currently occupied.

A lifer for us though not the Bird of the Day.-  We have seen the Southern Royal Albatross when we were in Chile.

On our Drive back around the peninsula we stopped to check out a flock of royal spoonbills.

Another cool bird but not a lifer. We've seen these before in Australia.