Kiwi Hunting

Those of us from NSW arrived in Queenstown at 1.45pm in the midst of rain, which turned to snow. Jox is from Tassie and he took a circuitous route which arrived 4 hours later and it was still snowing.

The view from the room that Anne and I had, overlooking Queenstown – still snowing.  We stayed at the Heartland Hotel, nice rooms with a good restaurant and open fire in the lounge.  Too wet, cold and snowy to go out for dinner so we dined in.

Next morning on our walk down to Halo Forbidden Bite for breakfast the snow was still evident.  We set off for Invercargill in rain and made a bee-line down south where we hoped the weather would be better.

We drove down to Invercargill staying the night at Birchwood Manor (again a great motel, Anne and I had a 2 bedroom suite!).  Before our flight to Oban (Stewart Island) at 4pm, we took a drive out to Bluff (not quite the furthest point south on the South Island). (l-r JV, Jox, Anne & David)

Nice rugged coastline at Bluff.

One of the highlights at Bluff is a big chain sculpture – this was actually built after a similar sculpture (see below) which is on Stewart island.  The end of the “anchor chain” at Stewart Island  illustrates the mythological link between the canoe of Maui and its anchor stone.  This part at Bluff illustrates the attachment of the “prow” of the canoe (Bluff) to the canoe.

Anne and JV at the Stewart Island part of the chain, you can see it from the air when you fly into Oban.

An old lighthouse at Bluff – the area was a big whaling centre in the old days.

Jox (who sat in the seat beside the pilot) getting out of the Britten Norman Islander on our arrival at Oban.  It’s been a long time since I set foot in a light aircraft and it was disconcerting flying at such a low altitude.

Oban – We stayed in the South Sea Hotel Cottage and this is the view from the hotel.  The town (pop. 400) was pretty much shut down for winter, but there was still a small supermarket where we picked up gas for our stoves and some last minute items.  Apparently during summer, the population soars to 4,000.  The Hotel was great, with a nice bar and excellent food (the Blue Cod is to die for!).

Anne and I took a walk around the foreshore before dinner, there are hills on the island (which I had imagined being flat), but there’s not much elevation.  Land prices are very high ($700,000 for sea-front).

View from the ferry wharf.  We had breakfast at the hotel and set off on our 3 day (2 night) trek mid-morning.

Our route took us for 5k on tarred roads, and we passed Anchor Stone a property that had all these anchor stones out the front.

More of the anchor stones (and chains).

Before long we were on the track and passing some stunning coastal scenery with 8k of track to our hut for the night.

Lee Bay, the guys took the low-tide route past this driftwood.

Anne and I crossed the bridge at Lee Bay and took the high-tide route (we were unaware that there was another way … should have paid more attention to the guide we were given).

By now we’re pretty happy with the track, there’s no mud and the scenery’s pretty good, not to mention the stunning Lord of the Rings vegetation in many sections.

If it was a hot day in the summer you’d spend a lot of time dropping down to these lovely beaches, the water was crystal clear.

There were a lot of steps, in fact by the end of the walk, the constant ascending and descending of steps became tedious.  These ones were ok, but on day 2 and 3, some of the steps were slippery and filled with water.

Maori Beach, we had to cross a small stream and stopped for lunch at the shelter behind the beach.

Between 1913 and 1931, Maori Beach was a busy settlement with a school and several houses for workers of the two saw mills.  All that’s left now is some machinery a short walk from the campsite and a clump of daffodils near the swing bridge.

The creek behind Maori Beach, they would probably have rafted logs down this creek to load up onto barges in the old days.  There was a campsite on this spot and a fire scar, campers must have found driftwood to burn, first time I’ve seen a fire scar in NZ.

We found these interesting marks on the beach which I was later told were the tracks of a seal – really disappointed that I didn’t see it!  At first we thought they might be from turtles, but the marine biologist had already told us there were no turtles this far south.

After lunch we set out along Maori Beach, looked like a lot of beach walking but the sand was hard packed and it was easy going.

Anne and Jox at the swing bridge at the end of the beach (looking back towards Maori Beach).

The track from Maori Beach to Port William (and our hut for the night), was lovely, beautiful vegetation.

These are Rimu Trees, supposedly 500 year old, these are the type of trees that were logged in the early 1900s.  The lifespan of the trees is apparently 800 – 900 years.

Port William Hut – well set up but no gas stoves (all Great Walks that the guys have done to date were equipped with gas stoves).  During the night I heard the unmistakable sound of a female kiwi, almost outside the hut … silly me I should have jumped up with my torch but didn’t.  This was the closest we got to a kiwi sighting!

Anne on the beach at Port William Hut with the jetty in the distance.  The Maoris had apparently been visiting this area since the 13th Century.  In more recent times, the sheltered harbour was used for many purposes … a sealing and whaling base, an unsuccessful gold prospecting venture, an oyster fishery and a brief attempted settlement of Shetland Islanders.  There’s a large map in the hut showing how the settlement would have been built.

Next morning on the walk back to the track junction to take us to North Arm Hut, Anne, Jox and I took a small side trip on a footpad, wondering where it was heading … maybe a great lookout?  The route through the ferns was lovely, eventually it ended at the shoreline, and we discovered the remnants of the original track that is no longer used and some wooden steps across a creek.

Back on the track and we’re on the way to North Arm Hut, approximately 13k, which would supposedly take us 6 hours, I wondered why it would take so long.

There were a few lovely creek crossings and one section with some historic logging infrastructure

And now we know why this section will take so long … the mud, here’s Anne having an off track adventure trying to avoid ankle deep mud!  She’s smiling now but she was soon “over” the mud.

A little later and another one of the mud sections.

And between the mud sections there were lovely open dry sections.  This part was one of my favourite sections, more “natural” than the formed sections of track.

A small footbridge across a creek, with the original footbridge beside it, a sawn log covered in moss.

We arrived at North Am Hut to find some DoCs workers (suited up in white hazmat suits and wearing breathing apparatus) cleaning out the toilets and then a helicopter came and carried out the waste (and the rangers).  My guess is that they were getting ready for the influx of summer walkers.  It was really interesting watching the helicopter making the trips back and forth (obviously the helipad at Oban wasn’t that far away).  While we were at the hut, a young German girl joined us for the evening.

On the track again next morning.  This is a section of the track being upgraded, this was a good part, it was easy to walk on and the mud didn’t get through the black plastic waffling, on other sections it was just the white fabric below and this hadn’t coped with the mud.  The black plastic will eventually be covered with gravel and the track will be dry in all seasons.  Apparently the work had to be halted due to the workers having to go into the oyster leases to harvest all the diseased oysters.

Anne trying to avoid another muddy section.

Eventually the muddy sections were behind us and we were back on the coastal section, nice view up a creek.

The last of the water inlets before we were heading inland towards Fern Gully and the end of the track.

We had about four hours before our flight back to Invercargill so I did a short walk next morning from Halfmoon Bay to Golden Bay (shown above) via Deep Bay.  This was pretty cool as I ran into a lady who was out checking feral animal traps (cats and rats), was interesting talking to her about what they did with anything that was trapped.

We came across a raft of little Blue Penguins – the worlds smallest penguins, here they were alternating between resting and diving for food, they’re only 25cm when standing, a little later we ran into another group.  Not easy to spot being so small.

We then went to a Shag rookery, this was really cool, just a big old tree with heaps of nests, some with chicks in them.

The water below the rookery was a deep green, enticing enough to swim in (if it wasn’t so cold)!

On the way back to Golden Bay, we came across some Yellow Eyed Penguins (extremely rare), they are twice the size of the Little Blue Penguins and put on a real show for us porpoise-ing right next to the boat.

View from the Islander, looking at the wind farm at Bluff.

Anne and me at McLean’s falls, about 50m of cascading waterfalls.

More of these impressive falls.  On the route to Queenstown, there were numerous other signs for waterfalls but we didn’t stop.

The beautiful forest and the track from McLean’s Falls.

Tunnel Hill (in an Historic Reserve).  This is the southern most railway tunnel in NZ.  Work started on it in 1891 and took nearly 2 years to complete, it’s 246m long and cost 9,316 NZ pounds.

Further up the coast we stopped at Nugget Point to see the Tokata Lighthouse.  This area was stunning!

The view from the front of the lighthouse.  The lighthouse keepers cottages were back on a bluff behind the lighthouse itself.

On the track out to the lighthouse, it would be really cool to have the time (and energy) to scramble down to the small secluded beaches at the bottom of these cliffs.