Flightless Kiwi on the Airstrip

​Our next destination on the trip was Stewart Island / Rakiura, the smaller “third island” of New Zealand that few get the chance to visit. Its main attractions are rooted in its remoteness: raw nature, dark skies, and abundant bird life including a large population of wild kiwi. We spent two nights on Stewart Island itself, and two bookend nights in the port town of Bluff on the South Island.

​Bluff was sunny and windy when we arrived. It’s best known for producing the massive Bluff oysters, but unfortunately our visit didn’t overlap with the oyster season. Our AirBNB was a beautiful hillside home from the 1890s with a modern interior and a spectacular view of the water. Blackbirds and tui nibbled at the flax plants, the plants’ stems in constant motion from either the birds or the wind.

​I walked into town for groceries, taking a quick peek at some monuments and murals along the way. It was so windy that even the seagulls looked cold. A long wall by the shore was painted with bright blue cresting waves, ironically placed next to a tsunami warning sign. Other murals in town depicted shipwrecks and sharks, more ominous subjects in bright cheerful colors. A few kids were out in front of the store scootering around, while other kids were inside accompanying their parents as they shopped, but otherwise the town was quiet. It reminded me of the port towns I visited in Patagonia – hardy yet oddly charming.

​The next morning, we caught the ferry from Bluff to Stewart Island. Our large luggage went into steel containers that were carted around by forklift. The journey across the Foveaux Strait was turbulent and uncomfortable, a painful hour. I listened to music and pretended to be elsewhere. The other two went deep into survival mode, and Vincent’s nausea persisted on dry land. The only silver living was spotting a few albatrosses while leaving Bluff.

We stayed at a hostel in Oban, a town almost too small to handle all the tourism. Our room was a small but comfortable triple. The hostel staff were polite and helpful. Although the layout was a bit like a military barracks, it felt communal and safe. When we left a few items in the shared bathrooms, they were still there a day later. The most striking feature was the clientele. The other visitors were more diverse than your typical backpacker hostel, including families with children and groups of old ladies – perhaps a symptom of Oban’s lack of lodging, or the kind of people drawn to Stewart Island.

​The first day, we went for a hike from Golden Bay to Deep Bay. It was a well-maintained trail through a pretty forest, punctuated with glimpses of the ocean. The soundscape was filled with the robotic chirps and whistles of the tui, bringing to mind R2-D2. The sudden whoosh as they darted through the forest could be startling. I found a beautiful tui feather, small and iridescent blue. In contrast, the cute and timid fantails were usually seen before heard as they flitted through the trees.

​I continued hiking by myself out to Wohler’s Monument. The route passed by a small neighborhood and a disc golf course, then hugged the ridge above the beach. It ended at the grave of a local hero, buried on a hill overlooking a beautiful sandbar that connected the main island to the smaller Native Island. The trail returned to Oban, finishing with an excellent view overlooking the harbor.

​For dinner, we picked up fish & chips from the Kai Kart, a low-key gourmet gem that was just down the street from the hostel. The generous portions were wrapped in bundles of thick paper. When unfurled, they took up the whole table – we could barely see each other behind the wall of paper! The blue cod was so tender that it crumbled on the way to your mouth. It was incredibly tasty, some of the best fish & chips out there. They even had a good vegan burger.

​We signed up for an evening kiwi spotting tour with a company called Beaks & Feathers that began at 11:00pm. As we walked through the dark to the pickup location, we started to doubt there could be anyone else out in the deserted town. But sure enough, our guides were waiting on a dark porch, and the rest of the small group assembled on time. We hopped into a van with the custom plate “C K1WI” and drove up to Oban’s airstrip, the location chosen by Beaks & Feathers.

​As soon we arrived at the airstrip, the guides heard a male kiwi calling nearby. It didn’t take long to find it – but it quickly darted into the bushes. The guides described this behavior as “suspicious” and speculated that it was trespassing on another kiwi’s territory. We learned the kiwi are territorial and stay together as a family unit, so the guides knew the ages and genders of the airstrip’s normal inhabitants. The suspicious kiwi re-emerged, and we marveled at its awkward and endearing way of walking. Keeping its long beak down to hunt for bugs in the ground, it tottered forward on its legs, making a surprising amount of rustling in the brush. It was like a creature from a Dr. Seuss book, drawn from the imagination to be deliberately gangly and goofy. (Back in Milford Sound, our guide Jeff had joked, “whose idea was it to make the national bird shy, flightless, and nocturnal?”)

​We continued down the airstrip, walking on the paved section while our two guides shone red-tinted flashlights into the grass on either side. When a kiwi was spotted, the guides would tell us if it was male or female based on its size. The female kiwi are larger, as the kiwi eggs they lay are quite large. We’d slowly get a bit closer, while the kiwi continued milling about in the grass, and if we were lucky, it started ambling in our general direction. A few times, it walked right alongside someone in the group, checking around their shoes for bugs. At one point, a kiwi randomly fell on its side, apparently tripping over itself, before springing back up.

​Farther down the airstrip, we heard two kiwi squeaking aggressively with a third nearby, which our guides explained was quite unusual. The guides told us that a male and female pair will sometimes team up and make loud calls to assert dominance over their territory, but this scuffle came across as a fight. The female re-emerged and walked alongside our group, but the two males never re-emerged, so the cause and resolution were unclear.

​In total, we probably saw 5-6 kiwi over the course of 2 hours, spending a good 10 minutes with each one. We were thrilled! There are about 15,000 wild kiwi on Stewart Island, which is roughly 1/3 of the total kiwi population in all of New Zealand. Even still, we wouldn’t have found them without our guides. And there was something delightfully ironic about seeing these flightless birds on an airstrip, of all places. As a bonus, towards the end of the tour the clouds dispersed, and the night sky came out in full force.

​After a morning of sleeping in, we embarked on the next adventure at noon: a day trip to Ulva Island. We caught a water taxi at Golden Bay, piloted by a laidback local named Rakiura, who shares the Maori name for Stewart Island. He took us across the bay to Ulva Island, a peaceful place known for its avian diversity. We had a great time exploring this “island off an island off an island”.

​The trail was in perfect shape, a bit surprising considering its location. We hiked through the forest, taking our time to look for birds. We spotted several green parakeets (kakariki) including one that flew right by us. An overstuffed kereru silently roosted on a thick tree branch above us, inconspicuous despite its size. Small birds that were too fast to identify – probably warblers, tomtits, or robins – belted out tunes all around. The silhouettes of brown parrots (kaka) flew high above the trees. It was a lovely stroll. As we got closer to the beach, hikers in the other direction warned us about a sea lion resting under a downed tree. Even though we were expecting it, the sight of an enormous sea lion lying in the forest was still disarming. We tiptoed past.

​We reached West End Beach which had orangish sand, black rocks, and was divided into two segments by a rocky tower. We marveled at the bright red sea anemones, some of which were above the water line and had curled up into balls. We continued to Boulder Beach, where we had lunch on a rocky outcrop by the water’s edge. The final beach was Sydney Cove, a wide sandy beach where I joyfully jump-roped with a string of seaweed until it fell apart.

​We met our water taxi at the pre-determined hour for our ride back to Stewart Island. The skies were too cloudy to attempt a stargazing tour, so our evening was wide open. We had been looking forward to eating out, but it was a Tuesday and the beloved Kai Shack was closed. As far as we could tell, only one other restaurant was open. When we arrived, the tables were fully booked, and the overflow bar was crowded. It felt like the entire island was there. They didn’t have any vegan options, so we headed for the grocery store and used the hostel kitchen as our fallback. My stomach was on another hunger strike, so I sat this one out while Vincent and Rachel braved the kitchen. Poor Vincent returned to the room shell shocked from the kitchen warzone. Much later, I had a few canned veggies for a light meal.

​One the third day of exploring the island, we walked to the pretty Bathing Beach just outside of Oban. Then I peeled off for a longer solo hike to Horseshoe Bay. The trail hugged the coastline and hopped from beach to beach as it went around a peninsula. With a ferry to catch in the afternoon, I hiked quickly, and startled a few sleepy kereru as I passed. The pristine sand of Dead Man’s Beach and the panoramic views from Horseshoe Point were highlights. Along Horseshoe Bay, I passed by enormous tangles of kelp, a thick grove of trees that formed a tunnel, divers gearing up, and a water taxi being unloaded from a truck.

I made it back to Oban just as the rain started. We hung out in the hostel’s common area, chatting with a friendly Japanese-New Zealander family. The dad had a toothy smile, thick framed glasses, and a bucket hat. He had worked as a hairdresser and food production manager, and had interesting perspectives on Japanese work culture, immigrating to Auckland, and life in general.

The return ferry was mercifully less turbulent. We made a quick grocery run in Bluff and headed to the same AirBNB on the hillside. I made sweet potato wraps for dinner, stuffed with pesto, caramelized onions, and sundried tomatoes. Later, I gave myself a “spring shearing” with my hair trimming supplies.
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I’m so thankful we had the opportunity to visit Stewart Island. The wild kiwi were definitely the most memorable part, but the coastal hiking and bird watching were also world-class. It would have been nice to have clearer skies for better stargazing, especially since the Aurora Australis was peaking and had put on an amazing show a few nights earlier, but all of the stars don’t always align.