Spectacular Stewart Island
The wild beauty of Stewart Island beaches.
When I first came to New Zealand, I was amazed by how few of the Kiwis I met had visited Stewart Island. My then boyfriend had grown up spending holidays in the family bach in Golden Bay and had a lot to say about how great Stewart Island was. An island that is 85% national park? With real, actual kiwi, that you can sometimes see even in the daytime?! Hold my beer, I thought, I’m off!
words: Róisín Magee images: Real NZ and Róisín Magee
So when we got the chance, we took a couple of days to help the boyfriend’s parents pack everything we needed for two weeks on the island. This included coal (for the range)petrol (for the boat – very few cars on the island) and raincoats. I looked out at the bright blue skies and packed my bikini.
About 30 minutes into our ferry crossing I started to feel sick. My boyfriend asked politely if this was normal. It wasn’t. I had never been sea sick in my life, even on a mackerel fishing trip in Cornwall on which the other passengers had vomited throughout. Apparently this was the calmest he’d ever seen the Foveaux Strait. So either the Foveaux Strait is quite gnarly, or the coffee on board is not to be trusted.
Oban more than made up for the queasiness, however. It’s a lovely fishing village clustered around the harbour, with a small shop (best to bring most things you need with you), a pub in the form of the South Sea Hotel and a tourist shop run by one of the nicest ladies I’ve ever come across. She lent us her car to drive home in, although I forget why, and we bought merinos.
Rakiura/ Stewart Island is New Zealand’s third largest island. Polynesian people had arrived by the 1200s but they didn’t stick around. Māori, on the other hand, settled around the coast and on some neighbouring islands. They caught fish and harvested tītī, which is still a bit of a delicacy in Southland and delicious spread on hot buttered toast. In the first half of the 19th century, European sealers and whalers arrived.
Despite this long history of human habitation, most of the island is as it was before people arrived. There are around 15,000 southern tokoeka (Stewart Island Kiwi), as well as several species of native parrot, including kākāpō.
From Oban, you can visit Ulva Island, a predator-free scenic reserve in Patterson Inlet to see kākā, weka, kākāriki, south island saddlebacks, little blue penguins and rare yellow-eyed penguins. If you have your own boat, or take a water taxi, you can also visit the spit, where there are old middens to see and the Norwegian whaling base. Spooky, but well worth a trip. If you’re as lucky as we were, you might find an optimistic albatross flying alongside your boat.
Tramping is the main draw for a lot of visitors to the island (the Rakiura Track is a Great Walk). We fulfilled a childhood dream of my boyfriend’s and walked to the highest point on the island – Hananui/ Mt Anglem. After the disgrace of our ferry crossing, ruined by my retching, I marched ahead on day one leaving my boyfriend trailing behind me. He might have been carrying all of our gear. I forget.
We shared our hut on the first night with a man, who refused to say where he was from because he was a citizen of the world, and a generously proportioned German hiker who had twisted her ankle and was debating whether to ring the water taxi. She didn’t have a mobile phone. I’m not sure there was any coverage.
The next morning, I was in such a hurry to get out that I didn’t eat much breakfast. My boyfriend pointed out that just getting up and down Mt Anglem was a 1000 metre climb. In hearing this, the citizen of the world jumped up and announced he was going to run up Mt Anglem. We left as quickly as we could.
The climb began in thick mist and about two thirds of the way up, we met the world citizen on his way back down. He said the top was about five minutes´ walk but there was no point us going any further because it was completely clagged in. We ignored him. About 45 minutes after this, we popped through the cloud and were rewarded with glorious views across to the mainland and over the whole island.
I was so moved that I proposed (for the second time). The answer was no (again). I then promptly ran out of energy and to my lasting shame at one point sat down and cried on the way to our second hut. But it is a lasting testament to the appeal and magic of this beautiful place that this memory in no way tarnished the experience as a whole.
Go, if you haven’t been! And go again, if you have. Kiwis, you don’t know how lucky you are! (For anyone curious, no, I didn’t swim. It was very cold. But we didn’t use our raincoats much either – we had two weeks of beautiful blue skies.)
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