Stewart Island - Day 5 Wednesday the 27th of April
Today we are heading out to Ulva Island one of the many smaller islands dotted around Stewart Island which happens to be a small predator free island. I had anticipated that this would be like visiting Tiritiri Maitangi which I know so well in Auckland, but it turns out it was even better!
Another early start as we need to be at the Golden Bay wharf by 8.20am. Not a problem for me of course, but everyone else needed to get up and moving, especially hard on Robin who had a late night kiwi spotting.
7 minute ferry trip to Ulva Island
The ferry trip was only seven minutes long which Julianne was very pleased with. I had booked a four hour long tour and I was not sure how we could spend so much time touring one island and would stay interested, but our guide was absolutely brilliant and Ulva Island was full of natural biodiversity surprises. Unlike Tiri the forest is an original intact New Zealand forest and not regrowth, so there is lots of understory with lots of nature and the circle of life everywhere. The main challenge with 500 year old rimu etc. is that the tree canopy is quite high and the birds can also be quite high up which makes them harder to see.
The next four hours were packed with lots of great information on birds, trees, plants etc. Plant life does not normally interest me but the guide was really good at making it quite fascinating.
Within five minutes we had spotted a tiny baby weka and a Stewart Island Robin which Robin was super keen to see.
Little fluffy baby weka just ignoring us only a couple of meters away
Robin and the Stewart Island Robin
Robin taking photos
Over the course of the next four hours we saw a kaka up close finally, baby saddlebacks which unlike saddleback’s in Tiri don’t have the brown saddle. I also got a decent view of yellowhead birds flitting around high in the canopy for a while, also their similar cousin, another warbler the brown creeper which I had not even heard off before and lots of kakariki.
At the end of the trip we also finally got to see a sea lion which I was keen to see.
There were so many rare New Zealand birds all close up and personal as they don’t run away over the space of these magical four hours. It is so strange is that us massive humans can be within several meters of these rare birds and they don’t seem to care but as soon as a weka turns up all hell breaks loose with robins and other birds screeching out warning’s to all the local birds. Weka are perceived as a much bigger threat than we are.
Stewart Island Robin
Kaka
Strange weka dance
Kakariki
Robin and another robin
After the tour it was a quick lunch before heading back to Stewart Island for an afternoon of relaxing and preparing for tomorrow’s tramp.
Ulva island in the distance on the left hand side of the picture.
At the beginning of the week there was rain and I thought we would end up with several of our activities not able to be completed due to the weather; but we were lucky and the weather has fined up during the week. Everything has been achieved – Dark Sky Tour, Kiwi Tour and a visit to Ulva Island.
Next up the three day tramp.
