December 17 - Stewart Island

Notice to North Americans: Wherever I say "tramp" insert "hike". Wherever I say "track" insert "trail".

Stewart Island is a large island laying off the south tip of the South Island. It was slated as one of Cynthia's MUST DO items. Compliance is compulsory. She had her eye particularly fixed on one of New Zealands "Great Walks" called the Rakiura Track. It is a 38 kilometer loop intended to be done in three 12k +/- legs.

There is a one hour ferry ride from Bluff over to Oban, the only tiny spec of a town on the island. The rest of the island is reserved for masochists or smart people with boats. It's also one of the places that there is a better than average chance of seeing an actual kiwi in the wild. Not one of those "I'm not a kiwi, I just play one for the tourists" kind where you pay to go out with a "guide" who will show you how to use a flashlight, er, sorry, torch.

This is also one of the tracks where you have to book in advance to keep the hordes at a manageable level, and to insure that you have paid for the facilities that you intend to use, i.e. campsites or huts. We still don't get the hut thing so for us it was full-on camping.

Once you get there there is a lovely little jaunt of 6 kilometers, on foot, by road (I was forbidden to call a cab for this part) to get to the start point.

Ferry terminal

Almost the best scenery of the entire "tramp" is the part by road. Once you get on the track it goes like this:

Scenery: Day 1


Scenery: Day 2



Scenery: Day 3


Day 3 scenery: Supplemental

Anyway, we started out from the DoC center in a nice light drizzle for our trek to the starting point.

Still on the road, mind you


I tried to swerve in here but was cut off



Someone's idea of a sick joke

This nice bench was at the top of a hill along the road about 5k from town. It even has a nice phone and phonebook so you can call for a shuttle.

I quickly ran over just to find that the wire was a dummy just strung into the woods


More terrible road scenery


Check out the name - it says it all!


Yippee! We get to start now!


Day 1 track

Day 3 track

The track starts out real nice. There's even some great coastal scenery. This is where we came across the first "cheaters". There are people who throw on the old tennies, strap a kid or two on and trek on down the path...to the water taxi pick-up. They go home, have a nice dinner, maybe catch a Broadway show, then the next day they have the water taxi drop them off where they were picked up the day before and it's off to pick-up location 2. You get the idea. At the end they can tell all their friends how they did the Rakiura Track.

More of that great Day 1 track

Maori Beach: where we should have camped the first night


Do seagulls walk pigeon-toed?


Continuing on to the place we actually camped. It only added 2 hours to the tramp!


Finally. After only 8.5 miles we get to stop.



Funny little Oyster Catcher



Funny little Oyster Catcher that tried to take the top of my head off.




Reason the funny little Oyster Catcher tried to take the top of my head off.
We made friends though. I later built her a fortress around her stash.

Ok. End of leg one. Not feeling too bad. Still thinking about the motel, but I might survive this.
As I mentioned earlier, we opt for the camp site instead of the hut. Not too bad of a spot, and no one else around.

Nestled out of the wind


Cook shack

Before we had "dinner" we took a walk over to see what the hut looked like. They seem to like to separate the camp sites from the hut so that none of those filthy "campers" can sit on a hut seat or look out a hut window without they paid up the proper hut money. We did run into the hut mom who axed us if we had paid up. We said we wuz campers and fergot our papers back to the tent. She said she would wander over directly. Actually, she was a nice young girl DoC volunteer from the UK and we had her sit a spell back to the tent when she shewed up.

She gave us a hot kiwi spotting tip. She told us that a 10:30 every night, a kiwi or two would walk out from behind the cook shack, and if you stood real still, they would sometimes come up and sniff your foot, since they can't see very well. Ok, now that's cool. We really wanted to see a kiwi in the wild. So, Cynthia made a herculean effort to stay awake and stare at that spot. While we are staring at the spot, a couple other people came up and whispered "did you see any yet?"

Then another couple. Then two guys from Belgium, then a few more...and finally the DoC girl. Ok, so now there's like about ten people standing in the dark, whispering, and staring at the faint place where the kiwis are going to come out. And whispering. And staring.

I'm not really sure what they thought was going to happen. Did they think that a little trail (don't insert track here) of kiwis was going to sneak out? It was almost pitch black. Were the kiwis going to sneak out with little miner's helmets on with their little lights switched on? Maybe the kiwis will have red lenses on their lights (humans can't see red light you know). We went to bed.

The next morning we were up and running a bit later than usual. Cynthia had stayed up way past her bed time. After a nice sack of rehydrated breakfast (which looked more like a dog's dinner) we set off on leg two of the journey. So far, not too bad. I just might survive this. We were cautioned that this day would be just a bit harder as we had to climb over the mountains.

Left over logging relics



Oops! What happened to the nice track?

We were now about half way through the second day. You know, as far as you can get from either end of the tramp. That's when I slipped on a root and heard/felt this nice crunch in my right knee. I had dislocated this knee back in the 70's and when the doctor patched me up he told me that I might have trouble with it when I got in my fifties. Hmmm...let's see, divide by six, carry the one...oh crap! I'm in my fifties!

Well, not much you can do but soldier on. By the time we made it to the end of day 2 I was looking for my flare gun. I ate half the pain killers that we accidentally had in our first aid kit. I was saving the other half for breakfast.


Day three. Only about 8 miles to go. I swallowed the rest of the first aid kit with a little hot coffee and we set off down the trail. A little while later the Belgians passed us. Then the Germans from the hut. It was not looking good. The track had gotten absolutely miserable.

I couldn't put much weight on my right leg. After a couple hours of favoring the right leg, I couldn't put much weight on the left one either. Things were not looking good. We were averaging just a little over 1 kph. We had 12 to go. Going downhill was the worst. In some places I could only go down hill by turning around and backing down. The smart thing to have done would have been to tramp over to the hut at the second day and have Ranger Rick arrange for a water taxi. I've never been accused of being smart. It didn't help that some ass had marked the distance from the hut every 10 meters on the trail. I kept looking at my GPS. Only 8 more to go...only 7.9 more to go...only...

Kaka (parrot)

When we had made it 5 of the excruciating kilometers, I was making plans for Cynthia to hike out with her pack and leave me for the night, come back the next morning and carry mine out and I'd see if I could crawl out. About that time a couple things happened. One, I licked the remaining crumbs out of the first aid kit and two, the trail suddenly got a whole lot better. There was nothing for it but to just go. When I passed the DoC center I had to ask a kid to go hand in my trip completion report because I knew if I stopped, I couldn't get going again. I made it to the ferry. By the time we got back to the "mainland" I couldn't hardly walk again.

This morning I woke up and both knees were about the size of cantaloupes. I slammed some ibuprofen and made it to the car. I could drive but I couldn't hardly get in or out. When I could, I looked like Joe Cocker walking. We had just gotten into the Catlins when I realized that this is stupid. So, here I sit. Looks like I'll be holed up in some motel somewhere with dueling ice packs.