It's New Zealand as it used to be a century ago — doors are left unlocked, screeching kiwi interrupt your sleep, and if you're caught out in the rain passing locals stop to offer you a ride.
As soon as I'd dumped my bags in Oban I was collected by genial Phil of Phil's Sea Kayak Stewart Island for a coastal introduction to the island. As we paddled through the crystal clear water around multiple bays we saw numerous sea tulips, kina sea urchins, sea cucumbers and brittle stars, a skinny type of star fish. Above us spotted shags nested in the forest that clad the coast. We stopped on a sandy beach in the Ringaringa Passage, hoping to spot a sea lion that had been lurking around, but he was sadly absent. Instead I found a treasure trove of giant paua shells.
Of course the main reason to visit Stewart Island is to spot kiwi in the wild. There are believed to be 18,000 Stewart Island tokoeka kiwi on Stewart Island. Kiwi thrive there compared with other parts of New Zealand due to the complete absence of mice, ferrets, stoats and weasels. The Stewart Island tokoeka is not only the largest of the kiwi, but also unique in that it sometimes comes out in the daytime to forage for food, possibly because there aren't sufficient hours of darkness on Stewart Island in summer for them to feed.
When I would normally have been tucked up in bed I joined a kiwi-spotting tour with Beaks & Feathers. They have exclusive night- time access to the airstrip, an ideal location for kiwi-spotting due to the soft, squishy grassy area alongside the runway that makes grub-hunting easier. The kiwi sleep in the native forest bordering the strip during the day, then descend upon the grass at night, tapping the ground with their long beaks and using vibrations to locate grubs.
Within moments of arriving at the airstrip we located an adult male methodically tapping the ground then plunging his beak into the dirt to extract his prize. He didn't seem the least bit disturbed by our presence.
