Giveaways
Revised 18 November 2021
STEWART Island, or Rakiura, is the southernmost of New Zealand’s three main islands. You get to it from Invercargill or Bluff on the South Island mainland, of which a sliver is shown in the map above, either by ferry or by plane. The main port of arrival is Oban, though it is possible to fly to many locations on the island.
The island’s Māori name, Rakiura, means ‘blushing [or glowing] skies’ and is the more poetic in my view. It seems to be a reference to long twilights in these subantarctic latitudes, the aurora australis which can sometimes be seen from here, or both.
Most of the island is covered by Rakiura National Park, established in 2002. Only a little over four hundred people live on the island, most of them in Oban, the island’s only township, which is outside the national park.
There are three major tracks on the island. These are:
THE NORTH WEST CIRCUIT TRACK: Either from Oban or from Freshwater Landing all the way around to Port William by way of Mason Bay and the northern half of its sweeping beach, known in Māori as Oneroa (‘long beach’), and, from there onwards, around the northwestern lobe of the island. This is an epic hike of some 125 km if you start from Oban, taking nine to eleven days. From Christmas Village Hut, the second to last before Port William Hut when taking the circuit in a clockwise direction, it is possible to climb Hananui or Mt Anglem, the highest peak on the island at 980 metres or 3,215 feet above sea level.
THE SOUTHERN CIRCUIT TRACK: Also from Oban or Freshwater Landing, to Doughboy Bay by way of Mason Bay, and back. From Rakeahua Hut, on this route, it is possible to climb Mt Rakeahua (681 metres or 2,234 feet).
THE RAKIURA TRACK: the southernmost of New Zealand’s official Great Walks. The Rakiura Track loops around between the town of Oban and Lee Bay, at the end of a suburban road five kilometres to the north of Oban. Though it is a Great Walk, the Rakiura Track is actually the shortest of the island’s three major tracks.
In addition, there are many daywalks near Oban, and some isolated tracks in other localities and on islands off Stewart Island. These include tracks on the accessible bird sanctuary of Ulva Island or Te Wharawhara, which lies in a large natural harbour just south of Oban called Paterson Inlet or Whaka a Te Wera.
In addition, some people hike the Tin Range in the southern part of the island. This has no track on top, and is only for the most experienced of hikers.
The tourist website for the island is stewartisland.co.nz.
The small size of Oban belies its importance as the gateway to the island’s three major tracks.
Oban is in a bay called Halfmoon Bay, just north of Whaka a te Wera / Paterson Inlet.
Ulva Island or Te Wharawhara, an island that has never been milled and is free of predators, including rats, is a must-visit. It is a little piece of New Zealand as it used to be, or as near as is possible today.
Ulva is served by regular ferries as it is an open sanctuary, with walking trails. The island is quite sizable, more than three and a half kilometres long, so there is plenty to see.
When I revisited Ulva Island most recently, in November 2021, I spotted a seal on the beach, and also lots of birds. The following video shows a seal, and then a mōhua (also known as yellowhead), a kākā, and a tīeke (saddleback).
The names Ulva and Oban come from Scotland’s highlands and islands. They suggest that the Scottish settlers of Otago saw Stewart Island as something like the Hebrides. Or perhaps even the Shetlands to judge by the name of Vaila Voe Bay, which lies just west of Thule Bay on the Paterson Inlet side of Oban.
Te Puka O Te Waka, the Rakiura Museum, which is in a new building at 11 Main Road, is a really great, community oriented place to spend an hour or two.
At the museum, I took a photo of the following display about Māori muttonbirding.
Three hundred thousand tītī chicks are harvested and preserved annually by the southern Māori iwi or tribe known as Ngāi Tahu. This number is fully sustainable as there are estimated to be over twenty million of the species nesting around New Zealand, mainly in the Rakiura/Stewart Island area.
The chicks are cooked and preserved in their own fat in a semi-dried-out state, just like last week’s mutton, albeit with a strong fishy taste. The product is known in English as ‘muttonbirds’. This is a delicacy in the lower South Island, and you can even purchase muttonbird meat in the butchers in Dunedin.
The museum also had displays about the earliest inhabitants of the island. These included early communities of Māori who dwelt at a handful of permanent localities such as the peninsula of Te Wehi-a-Te-Wera or the Neck at the south-eastern end of Paterson Inlet, and fanned out across the island, and its offshore islands, on a seasonal basis. The original population of Rakiura predated Ngāi Tahu, the biggest South Island iwi or tribe, which actually immigrated from the North Island in more recent centuries.
The new museum in Main Street only opened in December 2020. Outside the old museum premises in Ayr Street, there is a ship’s propeller.
The propeller is a monument to the local whalers of the past (there’s no more whaling now). And there is another monument to a former ship’s captain beside it.
At the Lee Bay entrance to Rakiura National Park, a few kilometres north of Oban, there is a once-controversial representation of a huge steel chain dipping down toward the sea.
Unveiled at the same time the National Park was opened in 2002, the anchor chain sculpture symbolises the fact that Rakiura was, in legend, the anchor-stone of the demigod Māui’s canoe, the canoe being the South Island. Since 2009 there has been a complementary anchor chain sculpture at Bluff, on the South Island.
I think that the controversy was partly to do with the fact that, in Aotearoa, the legends of Māui also give prominence to several types of rope: squarish plaited ropes (tuamaka), flat plaited ropes (paharahara) and round spun ropes, all of which Māui and his brothers were supposed to have invented for the benefit of future Māori and other Polynesians. The representation of a metal anchor chain is thus not only anachronistic, but actually omits an important part of the legend as well.
I stayed at the Stewart Island Backpackers, further up Ayr Street from the old museum. You can get your own room there for NZ $70 a night, though I pitched a tent on their grounds. That’s even cheaper!
From Ayr Street, if you walk toward the water, you arrive at Elgin Street. Here is a photo of the South Sea Hotel in Elgin Street, where you can stay for NZ $130 a night. You can also get your own room in a backpacker hostel for about NZ $70 a night, or camp out for less.
There is heaps of accommodation in Oban, both in terms of hotels and lodges and backpackers, and also in terms of Airbnb.
Having said that, when I was there in November 2021, enjoying eight days of beautiful spring weather (virtually unheard of), a lot of places were already booked up even with Auckland under Level 3 lockdown.
The Kai Kart next to the museum is good for meals, and you can also get pies and hot chicken at the Four Square supermarket in Elgin Street, close to the giant chessboard and just past the South Sea Hotel if you are heading away from the museum.
As of the time of writing in November 2021, the Kai Kart’s current hours are evening mealtimes Wednesday to Sunday and lunchtime Friday and Saturday as well. These may change, but clearly those are the most reliable times!
I was very happy with using the Ulva Island Ferry and the water taxi to Freshwater Landing, both run by Rakiura Adventures, rakiura.nz. Their main skipper these days is a man named Rakiura Herzhoff, who also does reasonably priced boutique tours.
Rakiura Adventures pretty much go everywhere with their boats, which can be chartered for reasonably priced boutique tours, and they run sea kayaking tours, electric bike hire, snorkeling tours, and other adventures.
There are all sorts of guided walks in the Oban area, and you can do self-guided tours as well.
Good places to visit near Oban include the old Norwegian whaling station at Waipipi Scenic Reserve, the former sawmill at Māori Beach (which still has the old steam boiler and other equipment), the graves of the Wohlers missionary family at Ringaringa Point (a spectacular natural setting), and Acker’s Cottage (one of the oldest stone buildings on Rakiura).
DOC also has an online list of daywalks that you can do in the vicinity of Oban.
I dropped into a boutique called Glowing Sky Merino Wool Clothing, which has several stores now but actually started out on Stewart Island, whence its name. It’s worth checking out as well!
More controversially, you can go shark cage diving. This activity started up in 2006. It has a lot of critics who argue that the bait and other lures used to attract the sharks to the cages will lead them to attack recreational divers, pāua divers and people out muttonbirding in small boats. DOC is trying to get on top of this issue as well.
From Lee Bay, the bay that lies five kilometres north of Oban, it’s a three-to-four hour walk past Māori Beach to Port William Hut at the start of the North West Circuit Track.
Rhyming with Fort William, another locality in the Scottish Highlands, Port William has an early European history by New Zealand standards.
An attempt was made at logging, but because of the area’s extreme isolation it was hard to get either food shipped to the harbour or logs shipped out, beginning a downward spiral of a flagging industry and dwindling supplies.
A few years ago, I was a volunteer DOC warden at Port William. I had to clean toilets and sweep the hut. I also had to put out campfires at the camp site, a two-hour walk away, as well as collect hut tickets. It wasn’t demanding work — but somebody had to be there to do it.
I also saw sooty shearwaters or tītī landing at night and going into their burrows. It was a magical moment.
The DOC office on Stewart Island tends to use volunteer rangers, and when it came to the end of my stay, I discovered that the next volunteer had cancelled. I was asked to stay for another two weeks, which I happily agreed to.
Most of the time Stewart Island has a cool climate, but during February and March it can be a Pacific Island paradise: hot and sunny and ringing with birdsong of tūī, kākāriki and kererū.
When I walked to other huts, I could hear the fishermen’s radios mingling with the calls of the birds. It was absolute bliss, and I was more than happy staying longer.
Kiwi are also still common on the island, and I saw several when I returned in November 2021. The kiwi on Stewart Island, a subspecies of the southern brown kiwi known as the Rakiura tokoeka, which may even be a distinct species, are a lot bigger and fatter than most mainland varieties. There are thought to be twenty thousand Rakiura tokoeka.
However, the baby kiwi on Stewart Island are threatened by feral cats, which are probably also the chief predator of the endangered southern New Zealand dotterel, a seabird that nests only on Rakiura as well.
You can see Rakiura tokoeka in the daytime. I have seen them run across the path in the daytime. When I was working for DOC I even had one poke at my boot in the daytime, when I was wearing it!
DOC was only working for three months of each year to eliminate feral cats while I was working as a hut warden at Port William, and there was no trapping while I was there.
However, now that DOC is back to its 2008 staffing levels following earlier shortsighted cuts, it has announced an ambitious plan to eradicate the island’s feral cats — and rats, possums and hedgehogs as well — called Predator Free Rakiura. This will also eliminate the pests on smaller islands off the coast of Rakiura, where present.
In the second part of this post, I venture into the western part of the island. You can read Part 2 here.
PS: If you like what you are reading so far, check out my new book about the South Island! It's available for purchase from this website.
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