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Kiwi Beach and The Great White Breach
Stewart Island, New Zealand |
Stewart Island, New Zealand
Arriving in Bluff did feel a bit like landing at the end of the world, it has a population of just 1,800 and is the home to an Aluminum smelting plant which just fills the air with a strange and I am guessing fairly toxic odour. Aside from being the most southerly mainland town in NZ and the opposite end of NZ to Cape Reinga it is the entrance way to Stewart Island our next destination.
Our campsite in Bluff which clearly doesn’t get too many visitors was unmanned and just had an honesty box, in true form it was full to busting point of cheap **** German backpackers abusing the site for a free shower and one group were even using the over to dry their shoes. Thankfully the owners, all too used to these antics, paid their afternoon visit and cleared out the freeloaders leaving Tim and I with our own private campsite.
The next day we woke up to a hazy foggy Bluff morning, we packed our little rucksacks, parked Blondini in the secure carpark and headed over to Stewart Island for 3 days. Our first (and last) hostel stay in NZ.
Fearful of the ferry trip being rough we were blessed with calm seas and bright sunshine and as we arrived in Oban the port town of Stewart Island we could just watch the albatross (called Mollymawks) flying everywhere.
Our first outing in Stewart Island was a boat trip over to Ulva Island one of the best bird watching spots. The boat across was just unreal there must have been about 50 mollymawks following the boat. I soon understood why when the tour guide started to throw handfuls of fish from the back of the boat. I found it extremely surprising that feeding the birds was acceptable but I have to confess that it did enable us to get some great photos. Ulva Island was pretty blissful, we went on a walk through the forest listening to and seeing some pretty cool little birds, including the Stewart Island Robin, a scruffy little grey thing. Sadly we were not treated to a rare daylight sighting of the elusive kiwi but a Weka often confused for a kiwi did come and walk with us for a while.
Back in Stewart Island it was time for us to explore and to try and get ourselves booked onto a night time kiwi tour. One problem with our itinerary being prepared on a day to day basis is that we can’t usually book ahead and unfortunately the Kiwi tour only takes 10 people each night so getting a spot is pretty damn hard. We were on the waiting list and just had to keep everything closed that we got a phone call to say that someone had cancelled or not made it to the island. With the seas calm and the weather beautiful this seemed unlikely but we just kept praying.
So a few factoids about Stewart Island: It is more commonly known by its Maori name Rakiura which means glowing skies and may refer to either the amazing sunsets that it experiences or possibly the fact that Arora Australis or Southern lights can occasionally be seen from the Island. The only settlement on the Island is Oban which has a population of less than 400 people. The Island does have some of the same pest that have wiped out the endemic animals of NZ, but massive efforts have been made to eliminate these pests and Stewart Island has the most thriving endemic flora, fauna, bird and wildlife in NZ.
Jumping for joy we received a phone call, we had spots on the kiwi tour, yay!!!! Having been chatting to other tourist who had been on it in the nights previously they had all spotted at least one and some of them up to 4 kiwis. My ambition coming to NZ was to see a kiwi in its natural habitiat, something that is almost impossible and not many people in the world get to experience and here came our chance.
We set off on an old fishing boat that reminded me a lot of the Orca in Jaws and with the sun setting an the sky glowing an amazing red and orange we set off into the open ocean to head to an island, off an island, off an island. Getting over to the beach to see the kiwis was something of a mission as the boat docks on the opposite side and with the light fading we had a good 30 minute walk through the forest on slippy and uneven ground to even get to the beach. We had a lecture from our guide as to how it would work, that we would walk the beach with our torches off and he would guide us and if we found a kiwi there was to be no flash photography.
The kiwis have made their home on this beach as they like to feed on the sandhoppers that live in the rotting seaweed, it is one of the rare locations where in fact you can see the kiwis in the day as well as at night.
Getting over to the beach we were suddenly faced with crazy winds, huge waves lapping up the beach and we also had to be on the lookout for sea lions that come onto the beach for a rest occasionally. Walking the beach in the dark was a pretty terrifying affair with sea weed bubbles cracking underfoot as we just followed the one small light of the guide. Suddenly he stopped, gathered us together and as he shined his light up the beach, a huge a white tail deer popped out of the folliage, looked at us and about turned into the forest, too cool. Sadly we were not out deer spotting and we continued the hunt for a kiwi. Just moments later the guide stopped, gathered us and told us we had a kiwi, we slowly made our way closer and just stood and watched the most funny looking bird I have ever seen poking its long beak into the sand in search of sand hoppers. Kiwis are just unbelievably odd looking. David Attenborough once took this very tour and he described the kiwi more as a hobgoblin than a bird, he was right. This big round bundle of feathers with silly little wings, the biggest feet I have ever seen and just an ungainly wobble. Getting a photo of the kiwi was more or less impossible, but thankfully Tim did a pretty good job. I just have a selection of blurred dark pictures which in my mid were going to be prize winning picture postcard shots, they were not and have now been deleted. Sadly this was to be our only kiwi of the night, but who cares, we only needed to see one and this huge female specimen was just perfect.
The journey home was pretty scary, we survived the walk through the forest and hadn’t quite thought about the boat trip in the pitch black. With the boat rocking and no horizon to focus on it was not the most comfortable journey but having seen a real life kiwi in the wild I was not going let a bit of motion sickness spoil my night, thankfully we soon saw the few lights of Oban on the horizon and the calm harbour waters eased the suffering. What a night, thank you Stewart Island and the amazing Philip Smith of Bravo Adventure Cruises for making my NZ trip.
As far as Tim was concerned we had now done everything that we came to Stewart Island to see and do so just had a day relaxing around the town, eating the most amazing Blue Cod burgers from the Kai Kart Fish & Chip shop. We went to the Bunkhouse Theatre and watched the cool local movie about the history of living on Stewart Island and generally just enjoyed the hot sunny days that we were unbelievably experiencing here.
I however had a surprise for Tim. I had not told him about it as I knew that if he knew how much I had spent he would have had a small heart attack, but there are in my opinion some experiences that you just can’t put a price on and have to do.
As it turns out, one animal that lives in the waters around Stewart island is the Great White Shark. Yup we were going out on the shark boat. Not to cage dive as that was well out of our budget, but I figured just being on the boat watching these creatures that we had never seen in the wild was a once in a lifetime experience and one that you can’t do in many places around the world.
Luckily for Tim he didn’t know until the last minute that we were off on the Shark Dive boat as it is something that you have to be careful talking about on the island as it is currently the topic of much controversy. Every shop, café, hostel and bar has signs telling you not to support this enterprise. The Islanders are concerned t
hat the shark operations are changing the habits of the sharks and they are now attacking boats and putting the paua divers at risk. The Department of Conservation (DOC)have brought in pages and pages or rules for the shark operations to abide by, one of which is that they cannot feed the wildlife, which seemed a bit ironic given the feeding of the albatross!! This means that during any shark dive trip if the shark takes the bait off of the bait line another fish head cannot be used as this would class as feeding so the operators have to monitor that bait line like their life depends on it as the trip can be over in one bite. The reality of it is that great whites have lived off the coast of Stewart Island forever and anyone that swims, dives, snorkels or puts themselves in the water is putting themselves at risk. I fear that as soon as there is any incident between man and shark on Stewart Island DOC will pull the plug on these tours which is such a huge shame.
Thankfully for me, Tim absolutely loved the shark trip, it was beyond anything we ever imagined. Within minutes of arriving in the shark grounds which are just 20 minutes away from the island, we had 3 huge great whites just circling the boat. Sharks hunt at night so these sharks were just resting and were not agitated or attacking the boat, they barely even took the bait the vast majority of the time, it was almost like playing with a kitten with a toy on a string. Sometimes they swooped for the bait, sometimes they just ignored it.
The guys that were cage diving on out boat were made of strong stuff as they were in the water for pretty much the entire day, with the water at a brisk 14 degrees at the height of summer this is no tropical diving trip. They were super cool and even took Barry the Koala into the cage for a photo shoot with the sharks, go Barry!
I thought that seeing the kiwis on Stewart Island would be the most awesome experience that we had, but Shark Dive NZ were just the most awesome trip we could have ever hoped for. Professional, educational and we were treated like kings with hot drinks, snacks and even got shark bite goodie bags with fishy sweets and a celebratory glass of champers on the trip home. There is another dive operator who runs his boat out of Bluff and standards definitely seemed to be a little lower, to say the least. Rumour has it that he originally ran a sports shop that went bankrupt and so decided to make a shark cage out of the old shelves and on one of his first outings discovered they gap in the cage was too big as a shark popped his head in and became trapped with a poor diver cowering at the bottom of the cage, wow! Thankfully his cage is now safer but I was far happier on Shark Dive NZ’s boat which is the company of choice of Discovery Channel when they visit Stewart Island for shark week.
The one problem with the guide providing such a good lunch was that whilst everyone was relaxing around the boat stuffing their faces with hot pasties, I was the only one facing the right way when one of the sharks did a full breach right before my eyes. This is such a rare feat for a great white, usually they only do this when they are hunting seals (which may well have been happening)and to see it with my own eyes was unbelievable. Tim could just look at his half eaten pie with sadness that it had caused him to miss the breach, ha ha ha.
Stewart Island had treated us so well, more albatross than you can wave a stick at, a rare glimpse of the elusive kiwi and an unforgettable encounter with not one but 3 huge great white sharks. Life is good here but it is time to leave.
Back on the boat with yet another perfectly smooth crossing to Bluff and onwards to Invercargill.
Beans Around The World 