Stewart Island - Day 4 Tuesday the 26th of April
Today I felt much better with no headache and as always I was up early at 6.30am, way before everyone else. The morning was spent relaxing in the lovely holiday bach Akomoana we are staying in and watching the weather beginning to improve. It’s a good thing we got the dark sky tour done the night before, as it was fully overcast by morning.
As I was the only one up for hours by myself in the morning I went for a nice little walk, down to the end of a small peninsula just outside where we are staying. At one point I climbed down the side of the cliff to the rocks below with great views but with the tide in it was strange to be standing on these rocks way out from the beach along the side of this small peninsula.
View back to a beach after climbing down.
Robin relaxing and reading in a lazy morning.
This morning we followed a suggestion from Stein and instead of driving into Oban we walked in, which was a great idea. The walk was a nice easy 15 – 20 minutes and we didn’t have to carry lots of bags so we could enjoy the walk past the several bays down into town. The main activity for our visit today is the museum, which has only recently opened.
The museum is a great little window into the busy and ever changing history of Stewart Island. Turns out this was one of the first places were Maori and Europeans lived together, way before the treaty of Waitangi in the late 1700’s. These early Europeans were whalers along with some sealers.
A number of Maori and Europeans intermarried and there were settlements in a number of locations throughout Stewart Island such as the Neck and Port William which we are tramping to later in the week along with the surrounding islands such as Codfish Island / Whenua Hou. Most of these settlements were sites were Maori were living. The majority of these small towns are now gone, with Oban the remaining only European settlement. Who knew that there was much history around little Stewart Island.
I of course took a long time going through the museum, so I joined Julianne, Robin and Stein outside for a late lunch at 1pm. It had started to rain by this time so it looked like it was going to be a wet walk back to the house, but with mucking around town the rain settled down so we got back mostly dry. On the way Robin and I explored a side path which led up to the local cemetery. Then back in the house to relax for the afternoon, as this evening is our 3 hour long kiwi hunt!
Exploring Rakiura Museum Te Puka O Te Waka
An amazing little boat built by a 12 year old
Shoes made from seal hide
There are three kiwi tours that can be booked in the island, one in a fenced off area which sounded interesting but was fully booked, one that uses the airstrip and one which goes around town. I thought finding kiwi around town seemed a cool way of doing it, so at 7.20pm we were out the front of the Ruggedy Rang tour place.
We received a 30 minute intro into kiwi’s which was really interesting, even as I someone who has seen kiwi in the wild a number of times in the past I have not really had someone go over the level of details that Furhana from Ruggedy Range covered. There around about 15,000 to 18,000 kiwi on the island and even with rats and possums they are quite safe as it is stoats which are their main predators and there are none of these on the island.
We then jumped in Furhana’s van and simply drove around town. I thought we would be on foot but no we were in her van and it only took 5 minutes for Furhana to spot a kiwi while driving the van! And Furhana’s way of approaching them was really interesting and different than what I seen in the past, quiet of course, but really slow and all us humans approaching in a single line to pose less of a threat. We got a good 10 minutes watching this male kiwi eating non-stop, due to the recent rain the ground it was easy for the kiwi to stick his beck in and search for something to eat, and there is lots of food around. Normally when I see kiwi they move off, but here they just seem to ignore us.
When this kiwi moved off, we jumped into van and 10 minutes later Furhana had spotted another kiwi near the beach, and we spent another amazing 10 minutes watching our native icon eating right in front of us. Also what was very cool was that fact that Stein got to see his first wild kiwi.
We went to another spot but was not successful this time, and now as it was 10pm, and tomorrow we have an early start. Seeing several kiwi up close and personal for such an extended time was very special, and money well spent. Second Stewart Island activity done.
