Rakiura Track - Stuart Island [GW 09]

Te Araroa quest has been accomplished but since I got one more week left in New Zealand I have time for a couple of side quests as well. Great Walk in Stuart Island called Rakiura Track and kiwi spotting being top of the list.

Day 1

After boarding the ferry in Bluff our captain warned us that the ride will be "spicy", the sea was rough today because of the 95 km per hour winds. His advise was to undress (keep cold), don't move around during the ride and raise hand if we will need a baggy. We started hopping on top of the white water soon after. At this point I was regretting having a mutton pie, latte and banana muffin for breakfast. Luckily I survived. It was close though and I was holding the paper bag in my hand towards the end.

A girl from Switzerland called Nicole I met yesterday at the lodge was also on the ferry, I shared the taxi to the Rakiura trailhead and hiked with her for couple of hours until she stopped at the Port William Hut. We managed to spot a golden crested penguin at one of the beaches which was pretty special as apparently their population was fairly small. I kept on walking for another hour along Rakiura's North West Circuit, I wanted to camp somewhere remote, along the coast to have a better chance to see kiwi's in the morning. It started to rain and I decided to pitch a tent in the forest by the trail.

I chilled inside for a while but a squeaky tree branch noise kept on drawing my attention. Since it was windy and the noise was coming almost directly from above I decided to have a look and check if it won't kill me. When I looked up I saw a Kaka, a rare parrot munching on the branch in question and producing all the noise in process. It was four metres above me, I could unzip the vestibule and watch it while being inside of my sleeping bag. It was absolutely amazing. Kaka kept on destroying the branch to feed on termites (?) for over and hour. I even managed to shoot a low quality video of it on my Nikon.

After it took off, I left the vestibule slightly unzipped despite the rain hoping I'll manage to spot more wildlife before it gets dark but sadly nothing else happened.

Day 2

I could hear the kiwi calls in the area last night but it was raining heavily and I decided not to go outside. Starting before sunrise and walking with my makeshift red head torch (I taped a red semitransparent plastic I found on the side of the road onto the white light torch) didn't help much. It seemed like kiwi's were simply too shy to be seen.

I hiked all the way to Oban, track was muddy, running through the rainforest without much views. I arrived at the North Arm campsite by the midday and was back in town at 3pm. I bought the ferry ticket back to Bluff for tomorrow morning. I really wanted to give the kiwi spotting another go so I hiked out of the town along Ryan's Creek Track and camped by the coast hoping I will be able to hear kiwi calls at night and perhaps go into the bush to see them. Weather was much better than yesterday but it was suppose to start raining in the morning.

It turned out that seeing those elusive birds was much harder than I anticipated, other hikers I've asked didn't manage to see them too and only a handful of lucky ones did. At least I've saw a kaka and a golden crested penguin yesterday, this and completing the Rakiura Great Walk made this side trip worthwhile nonetheless.

Day 3 [or rather Night 2]

I decided to give kiwi spotting one more try. Hiked along Ryan's Creek Track in the evening and camped close to it. I've set the alarm for half past midnight and went to sleep. When I woke up it was still quite warm and most importantly dry outside, I've switched my makeshift red head torch on and started hiking around the Aerodrome in hopes to spot the elusive birds.

First half an hour brought absolutely nothing, I couldn't even hear any kiwi calls which were so abundant during the previous night. Then I startled something in the bushes but I decided not to go in and investigate as it was quite steep. Few minutes later I scared something else away! I could clearly hear big clumsy footsteps running away from me. The red light started to annoy me, I could hardly see more than few metres in front and before I reached the place to investigate it was long gone. I carried on along the path, this time I got more lucky, thing I scared ran directly in front of me along the trail and disappeared in the bush, I couldn't see too much detail of it but the silhouette was unmistakably that of a kiwi.

At this point I made a decision to break a rule and take the red layer of my torch off, this gave me way more light to work with and since the birds were running away at least I could see some details of them before they disappeared. And soon after the magic happened.

I was going through a flat, less overgrown part of the bush just behind the airport when I saw something moving right beside the trail. It was a round, fairly big, grey bird with a really long, thin and slightly curled beak. It was calm and not bothered about the head torch. It would stop, stay still and look at me every now and then but it wasn't going away. I followed it alongside the trail for few minutes and even shot a bad quality video of the encounter. It was an amazing moment, it took me walking through the entire New Zealand, going to the island where it's population was sizeable and stalking it in the middle of the night to finally find it!

After few minutes the bird started to move away from the trail, I've watched it until it disappeared in the bushes and didn't try to follow it. I set my tent up again on the road close to Oban and slept for few hours before folding everything up again and boarding the 8 am ferry to Bluff. The side quest was successfully accomplished and I could not be happier with the result.