Dec. 28-30

Invercargill to Stewart Island, and back

Invercargill did have two things going for it. One, the hostel was quite nice - a refurbished house, complete with two things I've rarely, if ever, seen anywhere else: free internet and a dishwasher.
Two, it was large enough to let us take the car in for a check while we prepared to head south to Stewart Island.

Stewart Island is the "third island" of New Zealand, but on the map is just a small chunk of land hanging just below the South Island.
The human population of the island is even smaller. There is one town, Oban, of about 300 people. There are no roads outside of the small town, and most of the island is a National Park.
What Stewart Island does have is a ton of birds and plants rarely found anywhere else. Although there are some introduced predators on Stewart Island, tiny islands just off shore have been cleared of the non-native mammals and are now bird sanctuaries.
We arrived late Wednesday after the one-hour ferry ride from Bluff (there is no regular car ferry, so I never learned exactly how the streets of Oban came to be full of parked cars). A few short walks on the outskirts of town and a stop at the town pub filled the rest of the evening.

Thursday brought a water taxi ride and walk around Ulva Island, one of the main bird sanctuaries. The birds here were not shy, especially the flightless Weka, which gave the impression of small, brown and streamlined chickens. There were sightings of parrots, parakeets, and a multitude of songbirds in the five hours or so we walked about.

We had to wake early on Friday in order to get back to Invercargill in time to pick up our car, now with new front brake rotors and pads. Then came a long and nearly fruitless (but very necessary) search for a laundromat.