Stewart Island, Rakiura National Park

Initially when I planned my trip to New Zealand I had not planned to visit Stewart Island. However, I realized I was already planning on going to 15/16 of the National Parks here so I couldn’t let that happen. Stewart Island is the southernmost point of the country – sitting an hour ferry ride South of the South island. It is twice the size of Singapore yet only has 300 year round residents and only 1% of the island is inhabited and over 90% of it is Rakiura National Park. Just 15 miles of road exists – the rest is protected nature reserve and lots of hiking trails. The ferry ride over was quite a rough one and I arrived to cold and windy weather so I went against my better judgment and booked myself on the island tour (I hate organized tours and usually they are a poor value for the money). Suffice it to say I won’t make that mistake again. $25 US dollars later I was driven around (we only got to get out 2 times) and shown such exciting things like the grocery store (which was a block from where the shuttle left and I had already walked by it twice). I did learn some random tidbits like there are 25 kids on the island who only go to school there until 7^th grade when they have to go to charter school across the straight in the mainland. Oh- and that there are 5 pregnant women on the island so population is booming…lol!

The next day was my only day to really get out and explore the weather. Thankfully the forecast was wrong and I was given a beautiful day. I did a long nature walk that took me through the lush green woods which were lined by beach after beach. The water was so clear as there is very little pollution or freshwater rivers causing runoff. Everything was just untouched which was so refreshing in fact several of the beaches I could see from the walk there was no apparent way to get down to. Given the how far South it is here the water stays rather frigid so swimming is a rare occurrence. When it was clear enough you could see mainland NZ across the water (last pic).

I combed the beach for shells and no surprise, given the lack of people, found many. I also stumbled across what I thought and later confirmed was a whale vertebrae, sad. It did look rather old/petrified – while whaling is not legal in these parts the Japanese do whale in these waters occasionally I learned, so it likely was thrown off a whaling ship at some point. The tide fluctuates greatly here as you can see by the pictures I took on my walk in and then walk back of this tree branch on the beach. In the end, I thoroughly enjoyed my short stay on Stewart Island, it was a nice change of pace taking a leisurely walk versus pushing myself to hike up some mountain.

All Steward Island Pics:

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