Stewart Island - Day 2: Sunday the 24th of April

Bluff

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.

The small bus taking us to Bluff was due to arrive at 8.15am, and at 7am I realised there were several groceries which I wanted to get before I get to the Island as I assumed that food and such would be a lot more expensive on Stewart Is and options limited. So after a quick breakfast I was walking down to Countdown at 7am, which was about 2 km’s away. I brought a range of basics such as bread, orange juice etc. and then with my arms full I had to carry this heavy load of shopping back to the room. All of this was a bit stressful early in the morning, but I was back by 7.50am. While I was away Julianne had packed up everything – then it was time for Robin to have his breakfast cereal, then the bus arrived just as the rain was picking up.

Waiting for the ferry

But finally everything was on the bus and there is nothing for me to do but just relax and travel to Stewart Island. We do have quite a bit of stuff with all our tramping equipment including food plus our normal clothes, books and games for our four days n Oban, the town on Stewart Island.

The bus driver had a small white cute dog with him, and it didn’t take long for him to end up on Juliane’s lap for the trip to Bluff. The weather was raining for the drive so the windows fogged up quickly, so I couldn’t see much outside and when we arrived at the famous Bluff sign-post we had to put on our rain coats to go have a look and take some wet photos. No one else got out of the bus.

The bus had us arrive a good 40 minutes early so we could relax at the ferry terminal, have an apple and then board the Stewart Island ferry.

Julianne gets motion sickness very easily and she couldn’t find her ginger tablets so the trip across was hard for her; and she spent the trip up the front holding onto a sick-bag but she did very well and made the whole hour long trip OK.

Whereas Robin and I loved the wild ride in the ferry. Leaving the South Island the boat was rocking and rolling all over the place and walking between Julianne up the front of the boat and out the back was a lot of fun but very wild. I spent most of the trip out the back with the spray and the boat rolling all over the place. At point a large wave came crashing over the back of the boat and I got very wet, luckily I had my rain coat on, but my trousers ended up being socked for most of the day.

It was great to see Robin with such a huge grin on his face and loving life to the fullest – makes my heart sing.

On arriving onto Stewart Island, we were meet by Heath who is half of the couple who manages the holiday place I have booked – Akomoana, which is several kilometers out of town. Heath was great as he gave us a quick tour around Oban on where to eat and where to go for tours which was really helpful, and then took us to our very nice place where we will be staying.

Akomoana is surrounded by trees, but high enough so we could look down onto the beach below. The most amazing thing which I had not realized is that the place comes with a car! I was planning on us having to walk everywhere, but on finding out we had a car included in our accommodation was such an amazing and great surprise – this will make the next few days a lot easier.

We unpacked, had lunch and then Julianne wanted to rest, so Robin and I drove into Oban and had a nosey around, visiting the DOC office and quickly visiting the small number of shops in town. Then we went back to find Julianne was up so we went back to Oban again and explored more fully. It turns out that the Four Square on Steward Island is quite small but packs a lot of items, it was like the Tardis of shopping and had everything we wanted and all at mainland prices! So my mad dash in the morning was actually not needed after all, but better safe than sorry.

After watching the beginning of the 6pm news we went back to Oban to collect Stein who had arrived on the later ferry. It’s going to be great to have some extra company over the next week, and I’m looking forward to introducing Stein to his first tramping experience.

We all then went to the local fish and chip place – the Kai Kart to pick up dinner. And the only fish is locally caught blue cod. We had to wait a good 30 minutes as they were so busy but we took the food back to our place, and was so yummy and delicious it was well worth the wait.

We were supposed to do our first activity that night, the Twinkle Dark Sky tour as it turns out Stewart Island is an official Dark Sky Sanctuary due to the very low levels of light pollution. But the tour was cancelled due to cloud cover, but at least the rain had mostly stopped.

So it was then time for a game of Citadel’s before heading off to bed.