NZ: Stewart Island to Invercargill

December 29, 2011

After a much needed sleep we were reenergized for our trip to Ulva Island - a small island only a few kilometres away from Stewart Island.  It is federally protected and all land predators have been removed (like rats and possums), so bird life thrives.  The trip was awesome but there were two main highlights in my opinion.  The first was the water taxi experience.  When we showed up at the dock and paid for our trip, we were given hilarious tickets made out of leaves! 

Also, our captain was adorable in his rubber boots and ponytail. 

We forgot our little Ulva Island booklet that we had bought the day before, so we had to re-buy it - which was quite common, said the ticket lady.

The birds themselves were the second highlight, but more specifically the island is home to a MASSIVE breed of pigeon.  The picture doesn't do the size justice, but it was awesome to see. 

There were also some cute little robins that came right up to us.  If we scuffed our feet in the dirt they would come that close to get the bugs (a tip from our taxi driver). 

Of course the bird we were really looking for was the kiwi.  There is one species that isn't nocturnal, so at least we had that going for us, but they are quite rare and timid.  Also, much too late, we found out that Ulva Island only has about 30-40 kiwi birds total on it, whereas Stewart Island actually has about 30 000!  Oops!  We still enjoyed the nice walking trails through the rainforest, and we found a bunch of pine cones which seemed out of place.

We left Ulva Island by noon so we had enough time to pack up camp and eat some last fresh fish and chips before our ferry back to the main land at 3:30pm.

I didn't mention it before, but the ferry only took passengers, not cars.  This had two implications.  First, we had to pack our tent and gear in our backpacks to take over, and also that we had to leave our car in a private parking lot overnight.  When we parked it there the day before the attendant was kind enough to squeeze us in next to a shed.  It was really tight so we had to have her guide us in, and I couldn't open the driver door once we were parked.  In all of the chaos I failed to turn off the headlights, so of course the car was dead when we got back the next day.  Luckily the lady was prepared, and she had her boosting machine all ready for us when we got back.  That could have gone MUCH worse!  In the end it was only about a 20 minute delay.

That night we only drive a short way to where we ended up camping in a deluxe, fancy caravan park in Invercargill.  The brand was "Top 10" and it came equipped with a barbeque, kitchen, TV, internet, hair dryer...the list goes on.  The site itself was on a lawn next to a sheep pasture.  We now look back on this site fondly, though we didn't appreciate it at the time.  We played a board game in the lounge, then fell asleep literally to the sound of sheep.