Stewart Island - Day 6: Thursday the 28th of April

Today the Rakiura – Stewart Island Great Walk begins with a nice slow easy start. Heath the manager of Akomoana the holiday bach we are staying at has offered to drive us down to the start of the tramp at Lee Bay. This will save us an hour of walking along the roadside and we quickly agreed.

About to begin the Rakiura – Stewart Island Great Walk

The Rakiura Great Walk is an easy three day tramp which is mostly flat following the coastline, and today was no exception.

The ‘chain’ linking Stewart Island to the South Island

What was immediately obvious was the large amount of birdlife which was so noisy, close and amazing to see and hear. Often when tramping in New Zealand you get great landscape views but very little in the way of original birdlife, often because of mammal predators or the path is simply busy with people, especially with the Great Walks which are so busy that the wildlife simply stay away from the main track. But it was not long before we came across tomtits (the beginning of many tomtits), bellbirds with their amazing bell like call, Kākāriki calling around us with kererū swooping along and kaka’s calling in the distance.

It was really nice to be walking through the New Zealand bush, even if it the trees are regrowth so are about 100 years old with all the sounds of New Zealand’s original wildlife singing around you which makes for a fantastic tramp, and well worth the effort to get to Stewart Island.

We stopped for lunch at Maori Bay, a long beach with a campground at one end. The campground had a number people camping and kids playing in the water. They breed them strong down at the bottom of the New Zealand as the water looked quite cold to me. Also at Maori Bay were the remains of an historic mill, one of many which were used to mill rimu trees in the area 100 years ago (I do like my history).

My friend Stein has joined us on the tramp, and it’s his first time tramping and he was doing well, though he is not so keen on the uphill’s.

I am super glad that we did the Ulva Island guided walk before heading off on the tramp. This was not the original plan but because of our ulva island visit we were loaded up with lots of local knowledge which made the tramp even more interesting. For example we can now recognize female and male rimu tree’s, and as this is a rimu forest they were everywhere. And we also learnt that you can eat the tiny seeds of the rimu tree, which were surprisingly yummy.

Once we arrived at the hut after walking for five hours the first thing I did was jump in the sea for a swim, this being my chance to get into the Foveaux Strait while hot and sweaty from a long walk. It was cold but very refreshing and I do like going for a swim after a day of tramping and often there is a river nearby but it’s not often I get to go into the ocean.

The DOC hut was crowded, as expected on a Great Walk which is not my favorite thing and one of the main reasons I have been avoiding Great Walks for the last few tramps. I do like a hut just for ourselves.

Going for a swim in April on Stewart Island.

While Robin was exploring outside around the hut he found some original pottery remains from the small number of houses from those who lived and worked here at Port William 100 years ago – he was very pleased, and rightly so on finding some old remains.

Julianne made a lovely spaghetti bolognaise for dinner, with mince coming from our own dehydrator back in Auckland. We also spent about 15 – 20 minutes looking for a kiwi after dinner in the dark but no luck – through we didn’t try too hard after seeing kiwi several nights ago on our kiwi tour.

But during the night lots of cool amazing stuff happened!

First up I had to use the bathroom (longdrop) at 1.30am and I came across a deer. I was using my specialised military red light torch which really lights up the night with an amazing red glow. The deer looked young and I had this bright red light shining straight into its eyes and it just didn’t move. It looked at me several times and then ate a bit and while it was munching I would move a bit closer. Doing this several times I got within five meters and it still only moved slowly away. It shows how effective a red light as it is not noticed by animals as there was no way I could have got this close with a white light torch or during the day.

A little while later I was beginning to doze back to sleep around 2.30am when I vaguely heard a kiwi in the distance. Robin who I thought was asleep elbowed me and said ‘Daddy a kiwi is outside’, so I jumped out of my sleeping bag and I dashed outside and pointed the touch in the general direction of the noise and there was a wild Stewart Island kiwi moving along outside the hut!

I dashed back into the hut and whispered “Robin, I have found the kiwi’ so he quickly got up, along as another random person from the hut.

Then 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 used the techniques we had learnt from our kiwi spotting tour several days earlier and 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.

What an amazing experience, I have seen little brown kiwi’s in the wild before on Tiri, but now I have seen the much larger Stewart island kiwi – and up close and personal for a good little while. One of the special highlights of walking the Stewart Island great walk has been achieved.

Then we went back into bed for some great dreams.

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Stewart Island - Day 6: Thursday the 28th of April