February 22, 2018 – Stewart Island, New Zealand

Our ship’s daily newspaper, titled Reflections, had a lead story today on Stewart Island subtitled “The Ends of the Earth” and, in a way, that’s true. Stewart Island (also known as Rakiura) is the third-largest island of New Zealand and lies 18 miles south of the much larger South Island, across the Foveaux Strait. We are now at 47° South latitude. As a point of reference in the northern hemisphere, Ottawa and Minneapolis are both at 45° N, and Bismarck, North Dakota is at 47°N. One difference from these three cities is that there isn’t any major land mass between Stewart Island and the South Pole (Antarctica).

Stewart Island is about the size of the city-state of Singapore, with a total population of slightly less than 400. Of that number, 322 live in the largest settlement of Oban, where we will be visiting today. The Symphony anchored off shore, and we came ashore via tender boats.

Based on all this, we ventured onto this island with low expectations. Boy, were we wrong! We greatly enjoyed our visit here and were surprised to learn that it is a popular destination for people interested in the outdoors – walking, hiking (backpacking), and fishing. Eighty-five percent of the land on the island is a national park, and other land is set aside for public or conservational use. Only about 3% of the land is available for housing or business use.

We signed up for a shore excursion on Stewart Island (sort of a “panoramic tour”) on a small, 20-person minibus and were very fortunate to have a fairly young Australian girl named Erin (probably in her 20’s) as a driver/guide. She had visited here, fallen in love with the pure natural environment, and moved to the island two years ago. She just bubbled with enthusiasm.

She told us there are only three primary roads in town. We covered them quickly and then headed out of town. An interesting statistic – there are only 17 miles of roads on the island, but there are 215 miles of what are called “walking tracks” on Stewart Island for hiking and backpacking. We saw backpackers of all ages everywhere we went on the island.

 

Here are some fun facts we learned from Erin:

- Almost everything in the way of food or other staples travel here on a freight boat, Visitors arrive either by fast ferry from the “mainland” (South Island) or via a small air strip used to deliver visitors (6 – 12 at a time) on very small airplanes. Emergency medical airlift is by these same planes or by helicopter.

- There are 30 students in a primary school, but no high school. HS students go to a boarding school on the “mainland” (South Island) Monday - Friday and travel back and forth by ferry.

- Water source for all homes is rain water. All have tanks to accumulate water.

- There is no crime and only one police officer.

- There is only one sports field and only one competitive game (rugby) is played per year, and it is a major community event.

- There are many kiwi birds on the island, but they only come out at night. We read (in another source) that there are more kiwis on the island than humans -- we didn’t see any of them today.

- Most original settlers were Scottish. There are two churches on the island – one Anglican, and one Presbyterian.

- During the summer season, the population doubles with tourists and (tourist-related) additional workers. The number of tourists is limited by the places they can stay (only one small hotel and a few rental cottages). Most tourists are “day-trippers” or backpackers who live in huts on the walking tracks.

For our visit, the weather was mostly sunny and pleasant, with a few periods of very light (misty) rain. Foliage was a very pretty green color. There are a few golden sand beaches, but the water is really too cold to swim in without wearing wetsuits. When the wind comes from out of the south, it can get chilly here; but Erin said that it never snows.

After the short, 90-minute tour, we had a good time walking around this apparently healthy, happy, conservation-minded community.

Jim & Ginny