Neena and I spent two weeks in the South Island. We stayed in Dunedin and Stewart Island and also spent 4-days cycling the Otago Rail Trail.
Dunedin was founded by Scottish settlers. New Zealand overall has a mild and in places almost tropical climate, yet the Scots chose to settle in just about the coldest most miserable area of the country (presumably the climate is favourable for breeding Haggis). They also founded in my opinion the most attractive city in NZ. There are a great many fine stone buildings (a rarity in this part of the world) and the place has a noticeably more chilled out feel which is quite a contrast to Wellington these days let alone the humungous sprawling metropolis that is Auckland.
Dunedin very much reminds me of some of the nicer parts of the UK, which is maybe why I like it so much. We may have a serious look at moving there at some point.
The Otago Rail Trail utilises the disused railway line running from Clyde to Middlemarch. We rode the trail over 4-days staying in Omakau, Wedderburn and Waipiata along the way. I am a much stronger rider than Neena so she hired an e-bike whilst I pedalled old school which had the effect of levelling things up between us effort wise and made for a better trip. Trail Journeys organised the accomodation, supplied the bikes and transported our bags, so all we had to do was ride.
The first two days were uphill and into a stiff headwind at times so the riding was a little harder than I was expecting, but in the overall scheme of things, still pretty easy. In contrast, the second two days were almost entirely downhill and with a tail wind as well so we fairly flew along and spent a considerable amount of time not pedalling at all!
The first few hours cycling from Clyde were a bit of a grind as there were endless roads to cross which really interrupted the flow. It was also very hot. After that the trail settled down and we were out into the wilds and the adventure really began.
The scenery on the trail is (mostly) not dramatic by New Zealand standards with much of the riding through wide open central Otago big sky country, but very nice all the same. There were also various bridges, tunnels and gorges to contend with, which added to the fun.
After the Rail Trail we headed south to Stewart Island where we spent five days in Oban.
Stewart Island is located at the bottom of the south island and is reached by either a short plane ride or a much longer and notoriously bumpy ferry ride. We took the plane.
I have been involved in conservation work on and off for years inspecting fences, feeding Kaka’s, trapping stoats and in the early days radio tracking Kiwi’s. In all that time I have never seen a Kiwi in the wild. Stewart Island is one of the few areas in NZ outside fenced reserves where Kiwi are hanging on, meaning that we would have a fighting chance seeing them. For me, this was the main driver behind going there. We had also planned to walk the 3-day Rakiura Walkway but this went somewhat awry.
It turned out that the two huts serving the track had severe bedbug infestations, so much so that it made the national news! In the end, we ended doing a series of day walks instead. In the evenings we hunted for Kiwi.
Being so far south the weather was also on the cool side which wasn’t great for sunbathing, but perfect for tramping.
I had expected the island to be beautiful as that is pretty well par for the course over here, but what did surprise us were the wonderfull sandy beaches.
In the evenings when it got dark we headed off in search of Kiwi. The best place to see them in Oban is (allegedly) an open area called Traill Park. I am buggered if we could spot them though. We did hear one and also saw a couple of deer, but that was about it. At times there were plenty of other people doing the same thing with many of them using bright white lights rather than the recommended red lights (red light also doesn’t destroy your night vision). Bright white light is evidently like Kryptonite to Kiwi’s, so in retrospect, we were probably wasting our time.
A special mention must go the Kai Kart who do the best fish and chips in the entire world and quite possibly beyond.
On the last night we got desperate and signed up on a commercial kiwi spotting tour. For what it was it was pretty pricey but worth it as we got to see a number of Kiwi and got very close to one as well - we had been standing in the pitch black with all the torches turned off (this is evidently a good tactic as Kiwi have very poor eye sight and hunt mostly by feel). When we turned our torch back on we found a small male Kiwi right at our feet. I don’t know who was more surprised us or the Kiwi!
Seeing Kiwi for me was the highlight of what had been a very enjoyable trip.
Otago Rail Trail Day 2. Yours truly.
You will have to screw your eyes up real good for this one. If you look close enough you should be able to spot a Kiwi. It took some serious video manipulation to get it even this bad. I am not considering a career as a wildlife photographer.
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