Tag Archives: Tourism

Walks on the Wild Side

Wednesday 18 March 2026 (cont’d) – The story so far….

Having wended their scenic way from Te Anau to the scruffy and mural-infested settlement of Bluff, our heroes, Jane and Steve, had braved the elements in a nerve-racking crossing of the Foveaux Strait and had completely confused their reception committee by buggering off to find their accommodation themselves. Now read on….

Stewart Island consists mainly of Rakiura National Park, which is a haven for many species of wild birds, untroubled by the stoats, ferrets, and weasels that humans brought to the main islands (to control the rabbits they also brought to the main islands – sigh) but neither rabbits nor mustelids made it to Stewart Island. It’s not entirely predator-free; there are possums, rats, cats and hedgehogs, and in February 2025, the Department of Conservation (DOC) announced a pest eradication project on the island to address these. One of the species which has thrived on Stewart Island is the tokoeka, or Stewart Island Kiwi, a type of southern brown kiwi that’s nearly as large as the northern brown kiwi. We’d seen other brands of kiwi in carefully controlled environments, and our mission on the Island was to try to see the native species in the wild. Unsurprisingly, more than one company exists to help people on this mission; the one we were booked in with was called Ruggedy Range. Although the Stewart Island Kiwi can be active during the day, our tour was booked to start at 8.30pm.

We presented ourselves at their office at the appointed hour; it was closed and dark, but we remained hopeful that something would happen eventually, and it did. A lady called Furhana emerged and bade us (and five other people who had drifted up in the gloaming) into the office, were she explained how she planned to go about showing us kiwis.

It’s clear that she really knows her stuff and that she had a tried and tested way of maximising the chances of seeing these elusive creatures. Personally, I found her style a rather irritating mix of didactic and scatter-brained, but she made it clear what she was going to do and what processes we were expected to follow. She also gave us lots of information about the birds, some of which we already knew and some of which was new. So, for example, we knew that the female was only just bigger than her egg, from which hatches a chick which is pretty much ready to go and forage for itself; we knew that their nostrils were at the far end of their bill, not at the head end, as this helped them to understand what they were grubbing for. But we hadn’t appreciated that their sight is very poor, their sense of smell is very keen and their sense of hearing very sharp. She also showed us some video footage. One demonstrated how careful you have to be not to scare the kiwi away with unfamiliar noises. Another demonstrated their really weird call. And a third demonstrated their fierce territoriality – they will fight by chasing and kicking an opponent, and can even fight to the death.

We had been given instructions to avoid wearing scented deodorant or insect repellent and to wear sturdy shoes. She also wanted people to wear “quiet” clothes, so my Peter Storm jacket got the thumbs down as I would make unwelcome plasticky rustling noises at the wrong moment. She provided alternative jackets for me and a couple of the others in the group and off we went in her van.

Surprisingly, she didn’t go off into the national park area, but actually stayed on the roads within Oban. The reason for this is that it’s easier for people to be quiet on asphalt than on gravel tracks or forest trails. So she drove around the local roads, using a red light torch to try to highlight any kiwis which might be about, fossicking in the hedgerows or verges. Again, surprisingly, the kiwis would be grubbing around near people’s houses, as this was good hunting for worms and insects. She found one really quite quickly and so we got out of the van as quietly as we could and followed her in line astern as she headed towards the kiwi she’d seen. I wasn’t really sure of when I was allowed to take photos, so I did nothing more than watch whilst the bird – a juvenile, maybe 18 months old – fossicked around, and eventually headed off out of our sight. Furhana then found an older female – probably the juvenile’s mother, given the animals’ territoriality – but this one was too wily for us to get any photos or videos before she disappeared. We went back and found Junior again, and this time we were able to get photos

Head well stuck into the ground looking for food

and even some video.

(Photographic footnote: this was all taken under red torchlight, and I have desaturated the footage so it appears in monochrome.)

This counted as a moderately successful outing (we met someone later who’d seen five the following evening, but still) so we were happy with the evening’s chasing about. It was a perfectly clear sky and the stars had been brilliant in the firmament above us, whenever we got the chance to look up from trying not to fall over in the dark, make too much noise, or otherwise embarrass ourselves; we got to bed just after midnight. Our wildlife adventures on the island weren’t over, though; as we had another tour booked for, well, later that day.

Thursday 19 March 2026 – Lying very close to Stewart Island, Ulva Island is also part of the Rakiura National Park. It’s much smaller than Stewart Island, being just 2.67km², and the bit where punters are allowed to walk is only about a quarter of that area. That said, the island is a sanctuary for both birds and plants, holding species that on the mainland of New Zealand are rare or have died out, and the walking that can be done is a good opportunity to see these. We were booked on an afternoon’s ramble on the island, so I looked out the Big Lens and we set off to meet our guide.

One might have been forgiven for expecting the trip to Ulva Island to start from the Oban waterfront, but no, we had to walk to Golden Bay Wharf, just over 1km from our accommodation. We took the opportunity to have a coffee in the South Sea Hotel

and looked along the Main Street,

(which gives you an idea of the scope of Oban as a metropolis) before embarking on the walk over. One kilometre might not seem much, but this is Stewart Island, so nothing is on the flat,

and we actually had quite a steep climb over a headland to reach the wharf

where eventually our guide, Emma from Ulva’s Guided Walks, joined us, as did a water taxi,

which took us on the five-minute journey over to Ulva Island.

It turned out that we were the only two punters in the group, so we had Emma to ourselves, which was great. She was very knowledgeable about the flora and fauna of the island, and was also a trustee of the island’s charitable trust.

We were bidden to to brush our boots before boarding the taxi, but that was the only precaution needed before going there; and, interestingly, it’s an open conservation area – no special permission needed to visit, no control over the number of visitors. It seems to work OK, because the island is effectively predator-free and the Department of Conservation maintains a sharp watch for any rats which might have swum over from the mainland (they get maybe one a year, but one year the incursion was a pregnant female which meant a lot of work to clear it).

We pottered about for some four hours, wandering over to a cove where we saw a pair of (fairly young) New Zealand Sealions

before heading off on the forest trail

across the top of the island. As well as plying us with a wealth of information about the endemic and native trees and plants (most of which I’ve forgotten), Emma did the usual guide thing, which I envy greatly but can’t emulate, of spotting things I didn’t even know were there, so we saw a decent variety of birds on our afternoon. A couple of the birds, though, weren’t difficult to spot – Stewart Island Robins: a female

and a male.

New Zealand robins resemble British robins in many ways, but the two groups are not closely related. One way in which they are similar is their territoriality; on our walk we crossed between the territories of different male robins, and they emphatically do not overlap. Also, like British robins, they are dead cute and not afraid of people,

and also terrible death-dealing bullies to other, lesser species. Difficult not to find them attractive, though.

What else did we see? Well, some sightings were of species we’d seen elsewhere, such as this Weka, which is however a smaller Stewart Island subspecies,

a local parrot, the Kaka (also a Stewart Island subspecies),

and a Morepork owl

which was tucked away in a very inaccessible corner of a tree. There are kiwis on the island, but we only got to see a burrow,

which might have once been for a Little Blue Penguin, and repurposed by the kiwi.

Some birds have been reintroduced to the island, such as the Saddleback

and the Red-fronted Parakeet.

We also saw some local orchids and a very unusual blue fungus.

We saw other birds, too, but I was unable to photograph them, as the buggers won’t keep still: Yellowheads and Riflemen (the local wren, with a call so high-pitched that it can go beyond human earing). So it was an engaging afternoon and I was pleased with the photos I managed to get.

After taking our return taxi ride back to Stewart Island, we decided to walk up to the Observation Rock Viewpoint, which gave us a nice, erm, view

and then we walked back down into Oban

and rewarded ourselves for the extra effort of all that uphill work by returning to the South Sea Hotel and consuming some of the local produce.

OK, Bluebird is nationwide in New Zealand, but the gin is definitely local there – and very good it is, too.

That was it for our Third Island activities; the morrow would see us take the ferry back to the South Island and continue on our way. We have one more major destination before we head to Christchurch and our return flight to the UK (via Singapore, by the way – our original route through Dubai has been changed). So stay with these pages to find out where we headed next and what we got up to whilst there.

The Third Island

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Wednesday 18 March 2026 – We could afford to make fairly stately progress southwards because our only dependency was on a ferry whose time had been rescheduled to 5.15pm, and that was a mere 200km away or so. The weather outlook was pretty decent,

so the Southern Scenic Route seemed a good idea. We exited Te Anau past the Fjordland Vintage Machinery Museum,

which was intriguing, but not sufficiently so as to divert us. The scenic route was, indeed, scenic, with some lovely cloud pattern in the hills.

Jane had looked out a coffee stop at the Brunel Peaks Cafe,

which didn’t immediately look promising, but turned out to be a delightful choice – excellent coffee and cake, displays of local art and produce and friendly service.

As we wended our way southwards, we noticed an area where tussock grass had taken over – not something we’d seen before.

Tussocks are normally something you’d only see in alpine areas in NZ, because by and large the lowland areas were forests – not a tussock growth area – until people came and then they converted forest to farmland. So it was interesting to see the tussocks making a comeback where (I assume) farmland has been left untouched for a while.

Our next stop was at the Clifden Suspension Bridge. The name sounds suspiciously like the famous bridge in Clifton, Bristol, in the UK, and actually the NZ one even looks a little like Brunel’s creation.

It was built in 1899 to a design by the Southland County Engineer C H Howarth, and at the time had the longest main span (111.5m) in the country. It’s a pedestrian-only bridge these days. Jane noticed that there were some young things Up To Something on the far side of the bridge, accompanied by much shouting and laughter. In the end, this is what they were doing.

They were wearing safety helmets, and so we supposed that what they were up to was legit; but they were clearly having some fun.

Jane had noticed something else on our route that had piqued her interest:

The Templeton Flax Mill Heritage Museum. All over New Zealand we had heard of the importance of flax to both indigenous and immigrant communities, so we were interested to understand more.

A few words about flax, first. New Zealand flax (Phormium tenax) is a completely different plant from that which we call flax in the UK (Linum usitatissimum); delicate, blue-flowered UK flax is cultivated for its fine fibres – used to make linen – its seeds and their oil. In the UK, flax seeds are linseeds: I remember from my childhood, for example, the importance of linseed oil for treating cricket bats to stop them cracking or splintering. New Zealand flax has huge spear shaped, architectural, fibrous leaves, of huge importance to the Maori because of its “flaxibility” (ho, ho). The coarse, strong fibres could be made into rope, clothing, baskets, nets, canoe sails, even; the plant has medicinal properties and food value. Flax plants grow everywhere across the country; it’s amazing that something so easily available is of such huge utility. When the European settlers encountered the plant and recognised its utility, and recognised the similarities between the Maori processing of its fibres and the processing of flax back home, they applied the familiar name of “flax” to this foreign plant.

So, we were intrigued. The Templeton Mill Museum is only active on special Open Days or by appointment, so Jane got in touch with the owners to see whether there was any chance we could see it. They said that they weren’t officially open today but that, since the door was unlocked, we were welcome to look inside!

It’s the only authentic flax mill plant operating on its original 1940s site, showcasing 1860s to 1970s flax processing technology. It was in full operation until 1972, amazingly.

Unsurprisingly, there’s a lot of information inside about how the final flax products are made from the leaves (foreground below)

The process involves harvesting, stripping, washing, bleaching, drying and scutching (a process of removing impurities from the fibres) before the fibres are baled into hanks (background above). Outside the mill, various varieties of flax are grown

and there is a drying rack for the fibres on display.

All of these various stops were pleasant diversions on our journey, which led us to Bluff, where we had to catch a ferry to Stewart Island. This ferry is another exclusive by RealNZ, by the way. We had thought that perhaps we could grab a coffee in the ferry terminal building, but the operation was a bit more basic than that; they operate a car park for ferry travellers and there’s a waiting room, but that’s about it. When we checked in, the chap who helped us suggested we went to “the pub across the road” for a coffee whilst we waited. So we did – sort of. Actually, we’d noticed, on our way in, that Bluff was a very basic sort of town, but it did seem to have a lot of street art. So before we went for coffee, we strolled around for a bit, and found a decent array of murals

and other installations.

There was an artist’s studio/shop called JIMI RABBITZ, with some really bizarre creations,

and (allegedly) the world’s most southerly chippie.

We called into the Eagle Hotel for a coffee

but they didn’t do hot drinks, so we had a cold beer instead. It was a pretty hardcore traditionalist sort of place, with a monosyllabic barman, a dartboard, the rules of Quoits posted on the wall, and other pub games of a more mysterious nature available to play, too.

The time came for us to board our ferry, which was a catamaran type, a bit smaller than the ones we’d travelled on the day before,

and so we trooped on board and took our seats. The skipper gave the usual safety chat and then set off. He said that it was “pretty calm” on the water. If so, I’d hate to be in what he called rough, because on the first stretch of the journey, it felt like the ferry was airborne at times. It certainly crashed around a lot, but he seemed unfazed by it and no-one on board was sick, so maybe this was normal. After a bit everything calmed down and the remainder was a smooth journey (about an hour in total). I noticed, as we headed into Stewart Island, that the skipper had given one of the crew a chance to have a go at driving.

So: Stewart Island, then. Had you asked me, before this trip, how many islands constituted New Zealand, I would have said “two”; and I would have been wrong. There are three main islands, and Stewart Island is that third island, roughly 1800 km² in size. (You’ll remember, of course, that Cook fudged the island issue when he did his charting of the country in 1769/70, when he came up with this chart:

He deliberately left Stewart Island as part of the mainland in order to fool those damn’ Frenchies and stop them sniffing around with a view to claiming the island for themselves. But, as we’d just confirmed for ourselves, it really is an island. 85% of it is a national park and the only settlement is a town called Oban, which is a small place with fewer than 500 permanent inhabitants.

We were due to be staying at the Kaka Retreat. Rather than having to heave al our bags on to the ferry, we had only brought our backpacks and one small suitcase, so, since everything in Oban is close to everything else in Oban we were happy with a plan to walk to our accommodation. On the way I was less than happy, because although the distances are short, the streets are not flat and although it was a short walk it was quite a steep one, so I was glad to get there. There was no reception evident, so we wandered in and Jane was greeted by a woman at the first chalet who simply said “you’re not in this one”. Somewhat taken aback, Jane asked how we found out which one we were in, and was told to call the Bay Motel. She did so, and that’s when we found out that we’d managed to walk straight past the Bay Motel reception committee on the wharf – they had been waiting there with a sign with our names, and a van to take us up to the Retreat. Thank God for mobile phones, eh?

Anyway, the lady in charge came up from the wharf with a couple of other guests who were staying there and showed us around the accommodation. We settled in (yes, Twinings finest Earl Grey was involved) and prepared ourselves for our activity that evening, which was due to start in about an hour’s time….

…and which you’ll have to read about in the next entry. See you there!

Scenic drive to Te Anau

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Monday 16 March 2026 – Our next stop was in Te Anau, which is at the southern end of Lake Te Anau, some 230km south-west of Wānaka and about a three-hour drive. Once again, we spent a great deal longer on the journey than the bare bones of the drive, as we had a couple of interesting towns and an encounter with flesh-eating and occasionally cannibalistic worms to fit into the journey. As well as that, we discovered as we went, there was a lot of scenery to ~~photograph~~ admire en route.

Our first stop was none of these things, though. As we were driving along, Jane said words which sounded to me like “pull in on the left here, there is a bra fence.” I couldn’t make sense of the second bit, but, because I know my place, I followed the basic instruction and pulled in on the left. And, behold!

There was a bra fence! Its history is rather chequered. It started because some wag put four bras on a fence, and, rather like the padlock bridges which one sees around the world, grew as people informally contributed to it and eventually was deemed an eyesore. It lost, erm, support from the local council who ordered it to be removed. Eventually it was set up at its current location, a private driveway belonging to Cardrona tour guide Kelly Spaans and her partner Sean Colbourne, and a donation facility added. It has currently raised over NZ$200,000 for breast cancer charities.

Having made a small donation to what seems like a good cause, we carried on, over the Crown Range Pass, about 40km south of Wānaka. There is a scenic lookout there, and with good reason. The view is simply staggering.

It even improves as you head down towards Queenstown,

with, at one point, a 270-degree panoramic view.

Queenstown, which is the lakeside town you can see in the first of the photos above, is very well-known as a place to visit. Less familiar to us was the name of the next place we visited, at the suggestion of Phil and Chris, our friends in Brisbane: Arrowtown. It’s a town with, we learned, a considerable history around gold mining and Chinese immigrants, so we drove in to take a look. The first challenge appeared to be to find a parking spot, but we followed a P sign which led to a full car park but one with an overflow area. We reached the furthest depths of the overflow area before we found a space, and I was worried that we would have a major hike into town until I looked to my left and saw a building whose picture I’d seen on Google Maps. It was actually this building

which is part of the Historic Arrowtown Chinese Settlement. So we had accidentally parked just a few yards away from a key part of the town we wanted to see!

So: Arrowtown, then. It’s a historic town, and the start of this history is marked.

In August 1862 Jack Tewa (known as Maori Jack) found gold in the Arrow River at this spot, and – who’d a thunk it? – very soon a town of 800 miners sprang up. The context of what follows is the Otago Gold Rush, which brought miners from all corners to this area of New Zealand in the 1860s. By 1865, the first flush was over and the provincial councils were worried about the local economy collapsing, so invited Chinese miners to come over and have a go. Altogether, some 8,000 miners came over and worked in the Otago area. In Arrowtown this was an inglorious episode where the Chinese were invited but not welcome; they were forced to live in huts beside Bush Creek, a tributary to the Arrow River, and endured considerable hostility from the local community. But the Chinese community in Arrowtown held together and developed while in others the Chinese, having made their money, moved away and any sites were abandoned. The site in Arrowtown is a partial restoration of the settlement, and “a mute reminder and tribute to the contribution made by Chinese goldminers and business people to the region’s gold mining, cultural and business history”.

There are several buildings to be seen on a short trail beside the creek. The building shown above, the one that caught my eye, is Al Lum’s Store, which stocked many of the European and imported goods that the Chinese miners needed. There are a few others, some dwellings and some used more for storage.

The main street in Arrowtown has many historic buildings still in use, and is a pleasant area to walk around. I wonder what the locals think about the large numbers of tourists who come to the town; one hopes they appreciate the income this represents.

Queenstown is basically next door to Arrowtown, but there’s still room for some scenery between the two.

It’s even more challenging to park in than Arrowtown. Caroline had recommended that we park at the Ice Arena and walk to the town through the gardens, so that’s what we did (but had to wait for someone to leave before we could park even there).

The gardens form an attractive area, with ponds and statuary

“Kuri”, by Richard Wells

“The Good Book” by Trevor Askin

and an area with some commemorative works in it

Bruce Grant, son of Queenstown, who ascended K2

Scott, Oates and the team who reached the South Pole but sadly didn’t make it back

From the gardens, you can go down to the waterfront and walk back to the town

above which one can see the Queenstown Gondola ascending. This is one of the many Things To Do in Queenstown, but we only had time for a quick coffee (OK, OK, and a scone, yes) before we had to move on. So we left Queenstown largely unexplored, but we needed to get to Te Anau in time for our date with those worms. The rest of the drive was quite scenic

without any particular Lookouts to look out for; and the scenery softened somewhat from the jaggedy mountains to a more rounded landscape.

The area is very pastoral, with lots of farming. At one point it appeared that neighbouring farms were competing in the number of hay “marshmallows” they could dot around their fields.

We had to get to Te Anau by 4.30pm in order to join a trip to some glowworm caves. We’d seen glowworms in the wild before, but were intrigued by the idea of an exploration into caves. The excursion is exclusively offered by RealNZ, which offers a number of excursions around the South Island (as we would see during the rest of our trip, actually). We checked in at their waterfront office in Te Anau and joined the happy throng

awaiting the boat which would take us to the caves.

It’s about half an hour’s cruise to Cavern House, where RealNZ have a visitor hut, which they use to brief people about the cave expedition. We kind of knew about the worms and the threads they dangle to ensnare insects attracted by the light they can emit, but we got a lot more detail via this briefing. Jane took photos of some of the pictures they showed us.

Glowworm threads

A glowworm exuding a thread

Among the nuggets we were told:

The largest insect they can deal with is a moth. Having ensnared it, they attack it through its eyes, the only way the worm can get at the moth’s good bits
The worm’s light comes from a mixture of three chemicals; it takes a worm around 45 minutes to kindle a light and about 10 minutes to extinguish it
They are territorial; one worm might knock a neighbour off its bit of cave roof if it encroaches
They are also cannibalistic; they might eat the other encroaching worm in order to maintain territory

We were also told that photography was forbidden; I knew this in advance, and so was emotionally prepared for this hardship.

The punters were then split into groups who each did something else whilst another group was looking at the worms. It’s a slick operation that RealNZ runs there, with 11 tours in a day and two to three dozen people in a tour. Since photography is forbidden, I can’t bring you my own photos, but there are some on the RealNZ site.

We had a short nature trek whilst the other group were in the caves, then we filed in (under a very low rock entrance) to the caves, which have been caused, of course, by rushing water. It’s still rushing, and in huge quantities – the name Te Anau comes from these caves, meaning the place of swirling waters – so at first things were very noisy as we followed a walkway past subterranean waterfalls and over rapids, with the glow of numbers of worms already visible. Eventually and in almost total darkness we clambered into a boat on a subterranean lake; this was manoeuvred by our guide pulling on a cable along a channel and into a chamber illuminated solely by the light of thousands, probably tens of thousands, of worms. It was quite the spectacle and the magic would have been ruined had people been trying to capture it on their phones, so the moratorium on photography makes complete sense.

We were glad that we’d made it to Te Anau in time for our cruise, which was a very good experience. The only suggestion I’d make is that they sell photos of the various parts of the trip – the waterfall and the rapids would make good images, and of course the worms themselves, difficult as it is to convey photographically. If they need a jobbing photographer to attempt these things, then they can contact me through this site…..

Only after this trip could we get to our accommodation in Te Anau, the comfortable and well-organised B&B called Dunluce. Te Anau was our base for one more activity, which I will tell you all about in the next entry.

Steve Walker

Photography/Videography Hobbyist; Travel Enthusiast

Tag Archives: Tourism

Walks on the Wild Side

The Third Island

Scenic drive to Te Anau