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It’s been a great seven days on Rakiura / Stewart Island and I strongly recommend the island as a place to holiday, wild kiwi’s walking around Oban town centre, amazing stars in this dark sky sanctuary and on the Great Walk lots of native birds singing, yummy local food - all in all a magical place.

We woke up early again as today is the last day of the tramp but once back at our house we need to pack up everything so we are at the ferry by 7.30am tomorrow morning, so everything has to be sorted today once we get back.

So begins the second day of the Rakiura – Stewart Island Great Walk. The kiwi experience that Robin, myself and some random guy called Russel had last night at 2.30am was the talk of the hut in the morning, quite a few jealous people I must say, we were very lucky – but Robin with his ranger hearing did give us a great advantage.

The Rakiura Stewart Island Great Walk begins and Robin and I had this magical 10 – 15 minutes watching this large Stewart Island kiwi slowly eating and moving around in front of us. We got within 2 meters of the kiwi. Then suddenly it reversed its direction and headed straight towards us and paused within ½ a meter of us. I could have reached out and touched it, and we both just softly breathed and took in this wonderful experience. Eventually the kiwi moved off into the bush were we could not follow.

Today we are heading out to Ulva Island, a small predator free island, one of the many smaller islands dotted around Stewart Island. We got up close and personal with robins, wekas, a kaka up close finally, baby saddlebacks which unlike the saddleback in Tiri don’t have the brown saddle. I also got a decent view of yellowhead

The morning was spent relaxing in the lovely holiday bach Akomoana we are staying in and watching the weather beginning to improve. before we headed out to see several wild kiwi !!

Great video of wild kiwi up close and personal taken in Oban town centre on Stewart Island.

Second day on Stewart Island, and today i went on the Twinkle Dark Sky tour which was absolutely fantastic and a lot better than I thought it was going to be. The next several hours were spent with a very enthusiastic guide relaxing in chairs staring up at the stars with binoculars.

Today is the day I actually get to Stewart Island; and the weather made for an exciting ferry trip across. Robin and I loved it, Julianne not so much.

I am so excited to be finally getting away to Stewart Island. I had planned this trip for October 2021 for my fiftieth birthday, but due to Covid-19 lockdowns it had to be postponed. But now in last week of April 2022, seven months later the Stewart Island trip & tramp is back on!

Saturday March the 12th 12/03/2022

Today was a very special amazing day as I got close up and personal with three kiwi chicks!

The day was spent at Rotorua Island, a small island east of Waiheke Island. I e-mailed them several weeks ago to see if I could land on the island by helicopter and they said yes. Also my father’s birthday is this month, so he came along and it was great to spend the day with my Dad, share a helicopter flight with him and see rare kiwi chicks.

Our final day on Tiri, and the first day the ferry has been able to get to the island.

We have been so lucky to have one of Aotearoa ‘s premier bird life sanctuary’s to ourselves for five whole wonderful days, but like most good things it must come to an end.

I woke up super early at 5.30am as I was keen to see if I could find a good place to experience the dawn chorus after yesterday’s failed attempt. Today I had a new plan, I would head down to where the nectar feeder is located near the end of the wattle track. My theory is that the bellbird’s and hihi’s which use the feeder during the day should be around as the sun comes up.

Today turned out to be a nice day spent with Luke as Julianne has a large cut on her foot and Robin still had a sore foot as well. It also turns out that ferry that which was supposed to come today is not arriving due to high wind gusts which meant that Luke and I basically had all rare birds and the island to ourselves while Julianne and Robin had the bunkhouse to themselves. This being the third day with Tiri just for ourselves and four others who we never see.

It’s a wonderful feeling to wake up on Tiritiri Matangi, go outside and to hear the dawn chorus including the haunting kokako’s and tui’s while having breakfast.

Like last time we stayed at Tiri, I have arranged for the boys to the daily clean and water refill the bird troughs on the island which located around the lighthouse and along the wattle track.

For this summer holiday we are headed out to Tiritiri Matangi, for a whole five days! The first day including seeing rare takake and tuatara.

I have always wanted to visit Wingpan, the home of the NZ falcan , and then Star the came and landed right beside my hand and started pecking at it! I put my arm down to see what would happen, and what I so privileged as this young NZ Falcon then climbed up onto my arm – I was a tad nervous as I didn’t any protection on but she was actually super gentle on my arm with those super sharp talons of hers.

This is the final day of our five day tramp and is another easy four hour walk with a gentle downhill to the car, but like yesterday the first 75% of the tramp involved over 100 stream crossings!

And a relaxing in a natural hot water spa! At the Waikite Valley Spa in Rotorua

A day with over 100 stream crossings and a great surprise, copies from Auckland University Tramping Club annual magazines ‘1997’ and ‘1998 & 1999 combined’ which are the years that I happened to have been in the Auckland Uni tramping club. There were several tramping reports which mentioned me and one large photo of a tramp I did in Taranaki with the club back in the late 1990’s. It was so cool to reminisce and think back to those early tramping days while in the middle of a tramp!

After yesterday was spent relaxing, today is our third day of tramping. At 6-30am everyone was up early at the Waikaremoana Holiday Park, with Julianne and I working to get everything ready, eating breakfast and packing the last things for the tramp while Robin stayed in his sleeping bag waking up and having his breakfast. Robin is not used to these early starts

Today is a day of rest!

Tired Robin after the last two days of tramping

After two day’s of walking, today is a rest day before beginning the next three days of tramping in the Whirinaki Te Pua-a-Tāne Conservation Park.