Once again a super day, this time at Rakiura, alias Stewart Island, the most southerly of the three islands of any size that make up New Zealand. Eighty five percent of the island is National Park and even the other parts are carefully managed by the owners. The statistics say it rains for two hundred and seventy days in the year but I’m pleased to say that this wasn’t one of them.
Thirty years ago this telephone, nailed to a tree, was the only way many islanders could communicate with the rest of New Zealand. It is literally set up by the roadside!
The island measures sixty by forty kilometres and there are four hundred and five inhabitants. Two of the bays around which people live are Half Moon Bay and Horseshoe Bay, but apparently they are named incorrectly. When the island came to be mapped, the mapmaker reversed the labels by mistake!
Department of Conservation personnel have worked hard to eradicate pests that were brought in from elsewhere, weasels, stoats, rats and possums. They have been successful with the first two but the others are still creating problems.
Supplies are generally brought in on the ferry which runs between Invercargill on the mainland and Oban, the only town on the island, a couple of times a day.
I visited Ulva Island, a bird sanctuary where several rare birds can be found and even rats have been eradicated, until another swims ashore from one of the boats. We didn’t see as many birds as we’d have wished, though we heard plenty, and did see saddleback, bell bird and tree creepers.
On the way back to Stewart Island we were followed by a host of mollymawks, possibly black-browed mollymawks, who evidently thought our boat was a fishing boat and were hoping for their supper.
Jean
