New Zealand's Other Island

Stewart Island is about the same distance south of Bluff in New Zealand's South Island as Foula is west of Shetland but the ferry is a bit different. It's a catamaran carrying around 60 passengers at 24 knots, and that's even in a 35 knot headwind which it was on Sunday. Lots of spray and whitecaps and banging through waves, lots of sick passengers, but we reached Oban on schedule in just under an hour. That's right, the only village on Stewart Island is called Oban, and just across Paterson Inlet are the islands of Iona and Ulva. Ulva is a bird sanctuary and the best place to see many native New Zealand birds which have been decimated by introduced predators like rats and cats elsewhere in NZ. This is a weka, which is a sort of flightless native hen, a bit smaller than a kiwi.

We had a couple of days there walking and soaking up the unique atmosphere. There is a strong connection here with both Orkney and Shetland. The earliest European settlers came from Orkney and there was a failed settlement in the north of the island by Shetlanders. Traill, Scollay, Peterson and Leask are all local names, and we found ourselves walking past Vaila Voe on Monday. We loved it and were really sorry to leave, but thankfully the weather had improved by Tuesday afternoon and we had a much more relaxed return trip.

We are now in Dunedin having visited Larnach Castle and the Albatross Centre on the Otago Peninsula today. This is a Royal Albatross and chick on their nest on the tip of the Otago Peninsula. This is their only nesting site other than the Chatham Islands. We were in a hide as part of the tour.
Dunedin is a bit of a culture shock itself. We knew it was a sort of southern version of Edinburgh settled by Scots Presbyterians, and we knew there was a statue of Rabbie Burns in the city centre but we really didn't expect the main streets to be called Princes Street and George Street, or to see buses going to Corstorphine and Portobello. Lots of school pupils seem to be wearing kilts as part of their school uniform, and the Water of Leith flows through the centre and past the Botanic Gardens. There's even a miniature copy of the Scott Monument - in Princes Street of course!