Postcards from Australasia #22

From Invercargill we got the ferry across to Oban on Stewart Island and settled in to our motel room.   Soon there was a tapping on the window, this South Island Kaka was obviously used to getting treats from the guests, it bit my finger too at one point, cheeky so-and-so:

The next day we stayed in, taking a break from our travels and watching the rain out of the window.   The following day we did a walk taking in some of the trails, although we had to wait for the rain to properly clear off.   On our third and final day on Stewart we got the water taxi across to Ulva Island/Rakiura, enjoying a close encounter with this White-capped Albatross on the way:

Because of the on and off rain i didn't take my telephoto instread relying on a normal lens, so i focused on some other forms of life on one of the beaches we visited on the circular trail:

We did see Stewart Island Robin, a sub-species of South Island Robin, critically engangered and in fact extinct on Stewart Island itself:

We also found something that looks suspiciously like a Fly Agaric:

Heading back over the hill having returned to the main Island, a Kereru/New Zealand Wood Pigeon was browsing on the grass of a sports field:

Our final morning on the island was marked by a beautiful sunrise:

Then it was down to the ferry terminal for the one hour crossing of the infamous Fevaux Straight, again as flat as a pancake:

Although another weather front was moving across the sky in front of us:

From Stewart we drove via the Catlins toward our next desintation, Owaka.   This is a typical beach on that area of the coast:

We stopped to explore some of the waterfalles including this, Macleans:

And taking in some vistas, which proved glorious:

We spent a day exploring the Owaka area, passing by estuaries:

Farms, this sheep seemed very happy with the Autumn sunshine:

We walked a few trails, exploring beaches, etc., looking for the Yellow-eyed Penguin, no joy though, we picked the wrong time of day and indeed the wrong season, but plenty of things still caught the eye:

A Red-billed Gull had found something, i think it may be a hunk of bread but can't be sure:

More waterfalls, it's a lovely area to explore:

From Owaka we headed up to Dunedin just a few weeks short of our planned flight home.   However the news of the UK government's experiment with herd immunity (i.e. mass infection and mass deaths), the chaos of border closures and the risks involved in international travel we had to really start thinking about what we were going to do.

We still went out and explored, visiting Cape Saunders, Helen's family name connection again:

It's a very remote cape and headland and mostly farms and private land, but Helen gamely posed by the sign to prove we'd visited.  That night we raised a glass of port to her late Father as we'd promised to do.

Then we headed to a beach, again no Penguins but we did see New Zealand Sealions hauling out and settling down to sleep.  I think the sand is to proect them from the prolific biting insects present all over South Island:

They soon settled:

We stopped by a small estuary to watch the tide slowly go out and the various birds there including White-faced Heron, South Island Oystercathers and this New Zealand (Sacred) Kingfisher all feeding in the shallows, when not perched and watching:

We finally visited the Orokonui Sanctuary.   A quieter than usual inland bird sanctuary, the numbers of tourists now visibly falling as new border restrictions were put in place.   With confirmed infections above 20 you could feel the change in atmosphere.   We enjoyed a sunshine walk, keeping our distance from fellow visitors, though really enjoying the wildlife including this Bellbird:

And the New Zealand Fantail amongst many others:

The mood music however with infections picking up across New Zealand, the UK and USA in full basket-case mode, Italy and Spain in crisis and with plenty of tourists still around (particularly from the USA which appreas to have no idea of the scale of the infection hence they are spreading it far and wide on their travels), lots of changes to border policies, airlines shutting down, etc., we decided the best course of action was to try and stay in New Zealand, rent a small place off the beaten track and try and weather the storm.

This therefore brought to an early end our holiday of a lifteime and what a holiday it has been!   Since the start of 2019 we've seen roughly 1,000 species of bird, travelled extensively in Australia, Fiji, PNG and finally New Zealand.  We've met some lovely people, caught up with friends, seen some amazing places, been harried by snakes, chased by spiders, been in front-of and behind catastrophic bushfires and now it's time to rest, take stock and try and avoid the virus that is doing so much harm to so many...

On our way to our self-imposed isolation we stopped at a few beaches but it felt time to get a move on so we did:

Postcards from Australasia #21

We woke to a crisp late summer morning in Wellington, making it down to the Interislander ferry terminal just after sunrise:

On the trip across we saw our first White-capped Albatross:

We enjoyed unusually calm seas on the crossing, notorious for being rough, and arrived in the Marlborough Sounds on approach to Picton:

Having enjoyed a bit of sunbathing we awoke the next morning and drove to a car park to start the 'snout' walk, as the morning cloud burned off:

It was peak cicada season:

Not the best picture but the number of empty shells show the scale of the emergence.   They landed on our packs, our arms, our faces.   Quite scratchy but soon persuaded to fly on:

Gorging on the fallen insects, was this Weka, so full and slow i could take this image with my landscape camera, up close:

At the highest point on the trail, on the return leg we saw the Interislander making its way into harbour:

The next day we joined an E.Ko tour into the sounds looking for some of the rarest wild birds in New Zealand, the King Shag, which we did indeed see, alongside these Hector's Dolphins, on the verge of being made a species of their own even though there are only 40 animals in this group:

Logging of the adjacent hills is their biggest threat currently, because the soil washes into the Sounds, obscuring the bottom of the sea bed where they feed.   We also saw New Zealand Fur Seal, this one swimming around near our boat:

And, on the return trip, a Little Blue Penguin:

From Picton we drove to the Golden Bay area, stopping at a viewpoint to take a snap:

The bay area itself, including farewell spit, was oddly closed/disfunctional, we couldn't really do much of anything we wanted so we did a bit of exploring and then headed back out again.   This is the view of the valley as we climbed the crazy steep 'hill' that is the pass out:

We headed down the coast before climbing into the Western Highlands, stopping at various spectacular coastal locations on our way south:

Including the 'pancake rocks' at Punakaiki:

We ended the day in Arthur's Pass walking up the Otira track in a fruitless search for Rock Wren, the views however were spectacular:

Though the main bridge marking the end of the regular trail, and the start of the mountaineering section, was a little tenuous:

We left Arthur's Pass after just one night, while it is spectacular the accommodation is rubbish and with almost no sleep we couldn't handle another night.   Instead we pre-extended our stay in Haast and drove via a stop at the Viaduct Overview, to see the Kea:

You can see how the 'fighting' of the pair below reveals the colour in their plumage, which otherwise is ideal bush camoflague against avian predators:

We hunkered down in Haast as it rained about 4 inches in a day-and-a-half, emerging on a dry morning to head further south towards Fiordland, the views on the drive South were stunning:

Queenstown in particular is a worthy tourist hotspot though we only viewed it in passing:

Helen took a few snaps of the landscape along the way:

In Fiordland we had to make some decisions.   A prior cyclone had wiped out the road leading to Milford Sound, another tourist hotspot, so we changed our boat booking to Doubtful Sound and instead drove in as fas as we could into the National Park, stopping for example at Mirror Lakes:

The landscape is truly spectacular.  This was a nice spot for a cup of tea for example:

We did a few walks including nature trails, meeting this confiding South Island Robin along the way, amongst many other of the endangered bird species of South Island:

The Doubtful Sound trip came around, starting with a sunrise over a misty inland, high-altitude Lake Manapouri:

Before heading into the sound proper:

Right at the end of the sounds, as you emerge into the Tasman sea, there's a colony of the now recovering New Zealand Fur Seal, including a healthy number of youngsters, back from the brink of a hunters extinction:

The dawn in Te Anau on our last morning was worth getting up early for:

We stopped for some fuel and this caught our eye, thoughts turning slowly but surely back to home as the adventure of a lifetime heads towards its own conclusion:

From Te Anau we drove to Invercargill on another cloudy Autumnal day, checking out Bluff, our departure point to Stewart Island and the last part of our New Zealand adventure.