December 28, 2011
We were not
expecting to have a horrible night sleep because of the wind, but sure enough
we had to get up at 2am to tighten the tent and get earplugs from the car. Things got better after that, but
unfortunately we had a 6am wakeup because we had to catch a 9:30am ferry in
Bluff, which was over an hour away.
By all measures the
ferry to Stewart Island was very rough, but I have some new motion sickness
pills that kept me feeling great through it all. I might even go so far as to say I enjoyed
it! We saw a massive seabird related to
the albatross, so that was pretty neat.
Stewart Island is
just off the far south west coast of New Zealand and is known for abundant and
protected bird life. It has a small
town, a few restaurants, and a grocery store, but that's about it.
The only place to
camp was at a hostel (Stewart Island Backpackers), so that's what we did. It worked out great because we got to use
their facilities and we were close to everything we wanted to see.
Napping/reading on
the grass at the hostel is what gave me my second sunburn of the trip. It was also there that we had our first
showers of the trip, which was quite exciting at the time.
For lunch we caved
and had locally caught fish and chips.
The food was delicious, but when I asked for vinegar they put it right
on the chips and when Ryan asked for a plastic fork they said that it cost
extra. So strange!
Since we couldn't
just sit around doing nothing all afternoon, we went on a short walk through
some beautiful forests to two beaches and the botanic gardens. I wasn't feeling great so what should have
been a short walk turned out to be long and tiresome.
We decided to relax
for the rest of the afternoon and play board games in the hostel common room
with a bottle of wine. After dinner at
the local hotel we went to the dock and looked for marine life, spotted only fish
and coral, and then we went to bed quite early.
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