Tuesday, 10 January 2017

Stewart Island

Today we took the ferry to Stewart Island - a wild one hour trip with the spray from the waves higher than the boat!  We walked for 6 and 1/2 hours, firstly to this beach...

then into the township of Oban where we had coffee, then did a loop walk to the ferry wharf for Ulva Island which is a predator free island full of birds.

It was amazing - here Malcolm befriends some weka, then...

...we saw a kiwi!!!!  Normally they are nocturnal but the Ulva Island ones aren't.  We watched it for about 15 mins before moving on.

What a beak!!

We saw parakeets...

...Stewart Island Robins.  Also saddleback, bellbird, grey warbler, tui, kaka and probably others.  Most of our photos of these are out of focus - the birds move so fast!  back at the ferry terminus we had to wait for 2 hours to get home as the boat had broken down.  Lovely sunny evening so not too much hardship.  This trip was worth the days of rain and cold.  A real highlight of our wanderings.

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