Stewart Island: Last Stop Before Antarctica

Stewart Island wasn’t on our first itinerary. That changed at the Dewey Hall ice cream social last summer, when our Sheffield neighbor Carolyn Fulton introduced us to her brother-in-law Jim, who splits his time between the US and New Zealand. Jim looked at our plans, raised an eyebrow, and asked why we were skipping Stewart Island. We didn’t have a good answer. A little research later, we’d not only added it — we’d committed to five nights. Best impulsive decision of the trip.
Getting there meant a nine-seat prop plane out of Invercargill, which was its own small adventure. The weight limit was brutal, so we packed the bare minimum — one change of clothes, a cooler, and wine, because priorities. There’s actually a grocery on the island, which would have been useful to know beforehand, but we made do.
We stayed at Sue’s AirBnB on Thule Road. Sue is the kind of host who, when you mention offhandedly that you’re a fussy pillow sleeper with no room in your bag, shows up with the right pillow. She also booked us into the island’s only restaurant without being asked. We stopped questioning our luck and just went with it.
The days filled up fast. We took a water taxi over to Ulva Island, a small predator-free bird sanctuary just off the coast. The drill there is simple: walk slowly, binoculars up, stay quiet, and try to spot something before it spots you. The few other humans on the trail were all doing the same thing, heads turning at every rustle. We heard far more birds than we saw, but what we did see was worth the patience. It’s a good kind of frustration.
We also water taxied to and hiked two of the three sections of the Rakiura Track — one of New Zealand’s Great Walks — in the rain, because of course we did. Soaked through, but the trail hugs coastal coves and tunnels through ferns the whole way. Apparently there are over 200 varieties of ferns in New Zealand, which starts to seem plausible after a few hours on the trail.
Then there was the kayaking. We went out with our guide Bill from Stewart Island Kayaking and spent nearly five hours paddling the coast with Brian, a fellow traveler from Chicago, on water so smooth it barely seemed real. Midway through, Bill steered us into a small cove and pulled us up onto the beach. He picked mussels straight off the rocks, got out a portable steamer from somewhere in his kayak, and cooked them on the spot with tea and cookies on the side. We sat on that little beach eating fresh mussels. Later that afternoon, Bill dropped by our “Bach” and gave me a souvenir t-shirt and thanked me for being his 200th customer. We thought the thanks were going in the wrong direction. His relaxed style, easy storytelling, and the way he kept everything safe and fun made it one of the standout days of the entire trip.
Every evening we went out in the dark with red flashlights and sandfly netting, hunting for kiwi. Stewart Island is one of the few places where they come out at night in numbers, and half the island’s tourists were out doing the same thing — you’d pass other little clusters of red lights moving through the dark like a very polite ghost hunt. The kiwis did not cooperate with us personally. Brian from Chicago caught one on video, and we’ve included it here so the trip isn’t a total loss on that front.