Stewart Island

Our next adventure after the Milford Track hike and spectacular boat ride on Milford sound was a trip to Stewart Island, which is off the southernmost tip of the South Island. We rented a car in Queenstown and drove a couple of hours to Invercargill, where we took a small plane to Stewart Island. We stayed in a funky motel a couple of kilometers from the tiny town on the Island (total population of Stewart Island is 387). We felt like we had arrived at the end of the earth. Stewart Island is the last bit of land before Antartica.

This is the harbor on Stewart Island.


The first day that we were on Stewart Island, we took a boat to Ulva Island, a small island wildlife (bird) refuge off Stewart Isand. A very knowledgeable ranger showed us many difficult to photograph rare birds, such as the South Island Robin and the South Island Saddleback. The ranger is very proud of the fact that rats have been exterminated on Ulva Isalnd and that these rare ground nesting birds (many of which are flightless)are coming back. We have lots of dark pictures of dark brown birds on the dark forest floor.

The next day was brighter, so we did the Stewart Island coast to coast fly-hike-boat adventure. We flew in an even smaller plane to Mason Bay, where we landed (at low tide) on a deserted, wild and spectacular beach.

Our single engine plane on the beach.

The beginning of the hiking trail.


Leaving the beach

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An old farmstead along the way. In the late 1800's a few families settled here to raise sheep. This lasted until the 1940's.


This is a boardwalk at least a kilometer long across a beautiful, but very swampy place.


When the boardwalk ended, it became VERY muddy! (for the last 2 kilometers).



We hiked around 7 miles to a backpacker's hut and then rode a boat back to the main harbor of the island.

After dinner and much scrubbing to remove mud, we were ready for our journey home via Auckland and Los Angeles.


This was a wonderful trip from start to finish. Now we are adjusting to time zones, unpacking and doing laundry and hoping that Spring will come to New England.

Thanks for journeying with us.