Rakiura, Stewart Island
Trip Start
Mar 10, 2007
1
124
188
Trip End
Jan 08, 2008
Oban Township,
New Zealand
Wednesday, October 10, 2007
The Foveaux Straight has the reputation of being one of the roughest crossings in the world, but today the water was very calm and the sail was smooth. We arrived at the island at about 11am and split into three groups; those who would be fishing (and bringing back dinner for the rest of us), those who would be taking the semi-submersible ride to view the local marine life, and those who had a desire to join a motorcycle gang for the afternon. I was onr of the latter group, so after lunch, I went with the other four girls who wanted to see the island down to the scooter hire shop - okay, its not quite the same, but scooter gang does not sound as menacing or entertaining. The scooters were exceptionally easy to ride, although there were one or two moments when I forgot about my brakes and nearly drove into the sea because I kept trying to hit a non-existant footbrake instead of using the convienently placed hand brakes on the steering column. It wasn't really a problem though as I did not actually end up in the ocean, and very soon I had forgotten to look for a phantom brake and was speeding up and down the virtually empty 28km of road that the island had to offer. The weather for the riding was glorious and the scooters were the perfect way to take in the picturesque and unspoilt scenery. People must live in such a remote place for the good days.
We even saw the anchor chain of the island when we got to Lee Bay, which proves that Stewart Island does in fact anchor the whole of New Zealand (I must remember to look for the fishing line as I head back north), or of course, it could have just been a work of art...
It was at this point that our motorcycle gang (on scooters, but the intention was there) almost had a brush with the law. We had sneakily taken the scooters off the road to have our ohoto taken in the anchor chain, when a car with official looking markings pulled into the car park. We brought the scooters back to the car park poste haste (innocently walking them) but it was notthe police, just a local plumber, and they were pretty decent about it. The police did arrive five minutes later though to do checks on the bay, so I was glad we had been given an unofficial warning by the other car. Some of the others had not taken it to heart, and had taken their scooters back off the road whe nthey saw that the other people were not the police. They were forced to hide behind bushes with their scooters while the policeman looked out over the bay. Amazing how lawless you can become is such a short space of time - imagine if we had actually been given motorbikes!
The policeman it turned out, was of the decent kind, deliberately checking the non-scooter hiding place first in order to give the girls a chance to get out of trouble. At least, I am pretty sure he did it deliberately as he stood looking out over their hiding place for a long time before turning and walking around the other way. It seems that there is at least one place in the world where the police do not worry about keeping their crime statistics in the green, or maybe he just did not like paperwork.
Next we headed to the opposite end of the road, but before we went we had some photos taken with our helemts and hairnets (yes we were wearing hairnets- intimidated?) looking fierce and smiling. I did not realise how difficult it is to snarl whilst wearing a hairnet, and the end result was more comical than it was intimidating. Nevermind. We orde around to the other end of the island and were caught out by high tide when we walked down to one of the signposed bays. We arrived to find the sea at the bottom of the stairs instead of a beach. It was still fairly pretty though so it was not a wasted walk. By this time our two hour hire was up, and we dropped the scooters back at the hire yard, our time as a motorcycle gang at an end.
I spent the rest of the afternoon snoozing, and woke up to the smell of panfried blue cod - in other words, just in time for dinner, and it was delicious. The people who caught the fish maintained that theirs tasted better, and it may have done, as they had the satisfaction of being the hunter/gathers, but mine tasted pretty good, as only a free meal can.
At 8.30pm, once we had polished off the last of the fish, we wnt back down to the wharf to wait for the tiny blue penguins that roost on the island to come ashore for the night. It was very windy and cold, and there was nowhere to shelter on our vantage point, so most people gave up after about twenty minutes of waiting. Five minutes later the penguins started coming in. I could hardly believe how tiny they were, or how they hopped over the rocks and swam against the waves. There was jsut enough light left to make them out as they crossed the shingle, but we stopped trying to take any photos when one of the locals who was watching told us that the flash could damage their eyes. About ten penguins came ashore in all, but one really struggled to get across the rocks, and his hesitation provoked a poo attach from one of the others. It was quite funny really, as at first it looked as though the second bird was coming out ot help the one that was stuck. It cautiously made its way out of the shelter until it stood on a rock opposite the stranded penguin, then carefully turned on the spot (we thought, to demonstrate a jump) but in the next instant a white projectile eruped from its bottom and hit the other penguin squarely in the chest. This immediately started the dawdling bird into action and he went back across the rocks and found an alternate path to the shelter. It made us smile, and made the walk back to the cabins much warmer, and after afew games of cards I had another fairly early night as we were catching the 8am ferry back to the mainland in the morning and I did not want to sleep in.
