After we left Slope Point and the Catlins, we drove straight to Bluff. Bluff is not New Zealand's southernmost point, but it's pretty close- and it IS New Zealand's southernmost town. Bluff is a small port town, and while most of New Zealand's towns are small, Bluff really felt small. I said to Kara that I thought it was like a populated ghost town, but it's likely just because of when we came- Bluff is known for it's oysters, but oyster season isn't until March. We went to Bluff because it's the point where you can catch the ferry to Stewart Island (Rakiura in Maori), which is where the Rakiura Track is! We decided to spend the night to give ourselves some time to prepare.
We went straight to our hostel, which was a cavernous building that used to be the post office. It had a lot of character, as did the proprietor, Lex, who we loved. (More on Lex in our next entry!) We got settled and decided to see the town a bit before packing our hiking bags for the tramp. We went out to Stirling Point, which is the end of the road- namely, Route 1, which travels the entire length of New Zealand from Cape Reinga to Bluff. At the end of the road is a signpost that offers a new beginning of the road- it's distances to some of the great cities!
We spend the afternoon and evening talking with a really interesting group of people who were also staying there, but more on that next entry. As it got on towards evening and sunset (sunset is like 9:30PM here, btw, with full dark at 11:30 or so), we decided to take a short walking track and go see a ship graveyard that lies on the Foveaux Straight there. The ships were mostly abandoned in the late 1800s, and though they were once quite large they were just ruins now. They used to be oyster ships!
The next morning we got up, stored our car and luggage at Bluff Lodge with Lex, and took our hiking backpacks off to Stewart Island and the town of Oban. The ferry ride was pretty smooth, but apparently the waters are infested with great white sharks. Oban is very nice! It's as tiny as Bluff, but it has a bit more tourism so it's more populated. We enjoyed exploring the town and the very nice backpackers we were staying at. We met some more awesome people-- and got some more great advice on our packs for our hike, haha. Everyone wanted to help us! We did find out that our packs were actually quite light, which made us happy.
We did have some time to kill once we got to Oban, so we decided to take a boat over to Ulva Island. Ulva Island is a bird sanctuary, which has been cleared of all invasive mammals. It's what the whole mainland of New Zealand would be like if it could also be cleared- there were birds EVERYWHERE! We got to see some really rare and cool ones. There were
Stewart Island robins, kakariki (a NZ parakeet), saddlebacks (very rare), tomtits, oystercatchers, kaka, wood pigeons, and of course fantails and tuis. Unfortunately, neither Kara nor I had a camera that was good enough to catch the birds. The birds in New Zealand are super interesting, and Kara and I are getting really into bird watching and identification.
Later that night, Matt, Chris, Kara and I, and a few other people from the hostel went out KIWI HUNTING! Stewart Island is one of the easiest places to see kiwi in the wild. We were really hoping to see a kiwi on the Rakiura Track, but we'd heard that people had had luck at the Rugby Field in Oban, so off we went.
When we got there, it was just getting dark (Kiwis are nocturnal), and there wasn't much in sight. Kara, who is much more patient than I, spent a lot of time just being still at the edge of the woods, looking in. Matt and Chris and the other chatted in a group in the field, while I walked into the woods with my phone flashlight.
Kara must have SOME sort of third eye, because shortly after I'd finished in the woods and joined her to see what she was thinking re: staying or going back, a WILD KIWI APPEARED. Well, I say appeared- it was nearly pitch black so we only saw his/her outline. (Kara says: I could see more than the outline, I guess my eyes are better, haha.) We were standing very still and looking, when we heard the rustling and snuffling noises that herald a kiwi. We stayed completely still and we were well rewarded. We couldn't see very well, but we saw enough, and we heard it, and it was SO COOL.
Unfortunately, because it was night, we couldn't get good photos (and we didn't want to freak it out with our lights- apparently, it's best to use red lights with kiwis, and we didn't have one.) I did get one, though, with indirect light. It's quite hard to see it, but the kiwi is in the center of the picture, behind the long leaf- the fuzzy, hedgehog looking guy. SO COOL.
The next day, we got up early and started walking! It's 5k (3 miles) from Oban to the start of the track, so we walked for quite a bit before it actually felt like we were really making progress, you know? We met a couple of guys and asked them to take our picture as we actually got on the track. The entrance is marked by the counterpart of the Maori anchor chain we saw in Bluff!
The entire tramp was 32k (not counting walking to and from the track), which is about 20 miles. This seems like a lot, but it's actually pretty doable in 3 days. We would walk about 10 or 12k each day, and though there were a lot of (to Kara and I) intense uphills and corresponding downhills, I think we did quite well! We took a lot of breaks and enjoyed the scenery. We really didn't even walk for that long each day either- the great walks are meant to be doable by anyone of moderate fitness level. The trails are well marked and well maintained, and many of the kiwis we met basically called them the 'highways' of the tramping world.
New Zealand is really amazing because they've build a network of backwoods huts for trampers to stay in. On the Great Walks the huts are quite nice and large, but there are huts all over the country on all of the walks. We stayed at a hut each night. They give you plain mats to sleep on, and you put your sleeping back over that. There is also a big lounge/kitchen area for cooking and there is a water hook up, and pit toilets. There were about 20 people in the huts each night, and we formed a really nice community!
Kara and I had looked forward to relaxing outside and maybe swimming, but both huts were beset by swarms of sandflies. There weren't any on the trail, but both of the huts were on the water. Sandflies are EVIL. They're New Zealand's answer to mosquitos- small flying bugs that bite you and it itches. Kara doesn't have much of a reaction, but I do. If I get a sandfly bite, I itch for WEEKS, and it swells, and it wakes me up at two in the morning with horrible itching. So I wasn't going outside for love or money, haha!
That ended up being okay because we got to know our fellow trampers better. We played card games and paper games and generally had an amazing and fun time. At night at the first hut (Port William Hut), we did brave the sandflies to go out looking for kiwis- no luck, but we all sat outside in silence and watched the sunset while waiting, and it was wonderful. The second night (at North Arm Hut) we didn't, since it was raining, but we instead played an amazing paper game that devolved into hilarity. Everyone writes random words and puts them in a hat. You divide into two teams, and a person from each team will pick a word and describe it. The rest of the team has to guess what it is. The second round, you put all of the words back in the hat and then the words have to be described with only ONE word. The third round, they have to be acted out. It ends up being a memorization game- which words are in the hat? An Alaskan guy showed it to us! I also got TONS of reading done. Everyone, read The Martian by Andy Weir. It's amazing.
The walk itself was really gorgeous. It was through native bush, which is a lot of spindly trees and ferns. It felt like walking through Jurassic Park (which Kara finally made me watch in Oamaru!) The trees weren't very big because many had been logged in the late 1800s, so there was a bit of sun coming through. The weather was quite good except that it rained a bit the last day- though it cleared up as we started walking. We loved the track, but it didn't have any really "grand" views- but I think we'll get that when we do Routeburn!
We didn't get too much by way of pictures since we were trying to save our phone batteries for possible kiwi sightings, but there are a few.
We changed our ferry time for the next morning to be earlier because Pheng and Matty had invited us to their house in Invercargill for morning tea! They are just the nicest guys. We grabbed our car and bags from Bluff, and got right on the road. We took a brief detour before going to see Pheng and Matty at the Southland Museum, which is a really cool museum that has, amongst many interesting exhibits, TUATARA!
Tuatara are so cool. They look like lizards, but they aren't really. They're the last in a line of reptiles that flourished 200 million years ago, with the dinosaurs. They survive only in New Zealand, and on the mainland only in captivity. The Southland Museum runs a breeding program, and they will give captive Tuatara out to various wildlife sanctuaries around the country or release them in the wild. Tuatara do survive and breed in the wild on predator-free islands around NZ.
We got to see a baby Tuatara- they're very active! Most adult Tuatara move very rarely. This Tuatara is Henry, who was born probably in the late 1800s. He was the captured for breeding but mostly just attacked his partners, until he had a brain tumor removed in 2002- and now he's much less violent.
We had to leave far too soon from Pheng and Mattys and high-tail it to Wanaka, as I had to get there in time to start by Hostel job! It's going quite well so far, I think, and Kara and I are in the thick of looking for work. But more on that later!