9 – 11 March
12 March (post script)
So, unfortunately I’ve caught Craig’s cold 😡. He did a Covid test and it is just a cold but seriously, can we both be fit and healthy for one day at least?!
We therefore spent the afternoon and evening in the house resting so we could try and recover quicker. I continued reading and Craig watched TV. I cooked dinner and had a good night’s sleep. Wild times.
Got up, Craig had a bath (surprisingly hard to find one on our travels so he wanted to make the most of it), we packed, left, dropped off our luggage at Stewart Island Flights and immediately bumped into my masseuse (this really is ridiculous, the island isn’t that tiny!) who showed us photos of kiwis they’d seen outside the pub last night. The night we were supposed to be in the pub. 😡😡😡
We had brunch this morning in a cute little cafe opposite the museum. Craig declared his coffee the best he’s had in NZ which made the owner very happy.
Craig has now gone off for a walk for 75 minutes while I sit in the pub – with a pot of tea, it is only 11.40 am after all! – and I’ll read until he returns and we get on our flight.
It’s forecast to be rainy and windy when we’re due to fly at lunchtime but it’s currently glorious. I’ll let you know if the flight was scary!!
11 March
If you’d like to see the highlights of Craig’s Ringa Ringa golf round it’s on his Tickety Tok channel Maddogsandenglishtan…
I had a very chilled evening last night reading (the excellent new detective series set in North Devon by Ann Cleeves, the author of the Shetland and Vera books) whilst Craig went on a kiwi night trek with the island’s resident expert Dan. Dan also drove our boat to and from Ulva island today. AS and UP talked about this in their blog about Stewart Island; it’s very like Scottish island life, most people do multiple jobs and you see them pop up pretty much everywhere. He left at 9 pm and returned just before midnight. He saw kiwis!! Lucky thing. Unfortunately it started chucking it down and he came back with a bit of a cold which he’s still got… 🤧
We headed to Golden Bay at 8.15 am to go to Ulva island on a three and a half hour guided walk. I’d emailed the tour people after I re-broke my toe and they said it would be fine as they stopped every ten yards or so to look at birds plus there are benches along the way…
There were six of us in the group plus Ulva, our guide. She was named after the island which in turn was named after Ulva island near Mull which we’ve previously visited. She was born and brought up here and (initially with her parents) flew to the UK for the British Bird Fair every year of her life until lockdown. She is the author of a great book about the birds of Ulva island and she was, of course, both extremely knowledgeable and extremely lovely.
We caught the tiny boat with Dan and six minutes after leaving Stewart Island we arrived on Ulva.
Apparently the vast majority of the island is exactly as it would have been when it Gondwana; it’s completely native forest as there’s never been human habitation or industry there. That’s pretty amazing.
I’m not a birder but I do love a walk with someone enthusiastic and informative and we had a really great time. I wrote down the names of some of the birds we saw…
Kakarikis (green parrot), Brown creepers, Yellowheads, Fantails, NZ wood pigeons, NZ robins and Red crowned parakeets.
She told us that their Robins can live up to 10-12 years! Birds usually live a maximum of 3-4 years but – and here’s a lesson for all of us! – the Stewart and Ulva Island robins suffer from much less stress than birds elsewhere. Chilled out little dudes! Unfortunately we didn’t get to see the Morpork owl ( all I could think about was Terry Pratchett) or a kiwi 😞. One day maybe…
I didn’t really get to take many photos of tiny birds half hidden either in undergrowth or treetops but here’s some pictures of our great morning out. PS, we absolutely did bump into my masseuse again 😵💫. Not that surprising really as everyone goes to Ulva but it was quite surprising to pass each other on the same path!
We were starving as we’d got up as late as possible and didn’t eat before we left so we drove straight from Golden Bay to the supermarket.
I really like pies. I really like chilli con carne. If either are on a menu I almost always choose one of them. If both are on the same menu it will come down to what the filling and type of pastry the pie is. So, imagine my absolute delight when I found that an imaginative local had made a chilli con carne pie that I could buy from the hot counter at the supermarket! This one looks like it’s winking and half smiling at me. I still ate it of course. Delicious. Thank you local genius pie person.
Not sure what we’re doing for the rest of the day as I need to rest my foot and Craig needs to get over his cold before we fly back to Invercargill tomorrow lunchtime. (See above for update)
Our time here has gone really quickly. It’s a magical place. Three nights is definitely not enough.
However we’re off to discover the east coast of the South Island next so there are plenty more great times to come! See you there x
💃🏼🪩 MORNING DISCO 🪩🕺
No apologies for selecting a song from an album I played a track from the other day. It is one of the greatest albums of all time after all.
It’s my gorgeous Christine McVie with the stunning Songbird from the album Rumours (1977). Lights down and lighters out people – or is it all about using the light on your mobile phones these days? 🧐 Either way, enjoy!
10 March
It’s Friday. We’ve been away for seven weeks. It feels like we don’t have a life back in London. That feels like something I had once and that this is my life. Travelling (even with an extremely heavy suitcase rather than a light backpack!) is addictive and we’re absolutely loving it. Only 11 weeks left. I can see why my niece Hannah has stayed in SE Asia on her travels for so long. Hi Hannah, love you 🥰.
Craig set off this morning intent on playing the brilliant sounding Ringa Ringa six hole (!) golf course. You pay at the Post Office (£5!) and leave a £15 deposit for a set of three golf clubs. Unfortunately they’d popped out for an hour (this is Stewart Island) so he headed back just in time for the heavens to open up. Lucky escape. It’s calmed down now so hopefully he’ll get a chance later.
We’re just waiting for someone to come over and show me how to work the cooker (I don’t think they’ve connected the gas…) so we can eat. My first chance to cook since we left home.
Craig’s off on a fantastic night trip later (the ground is too uneven in the dark and the walk is too long for me so I had to cancel 😞) so I’ll fill you in on that later. Buggar, the rain has started again. Full on torrential rain. Grrrrr.
The weather changed – it’s glorious and I’m sitting in our garden watching dozens of butterflies enjoying the flowers, listening to all sorts of birds communicating with each other and I can hear the waves lapping the shore and nothing else except a vehicle occasionally pass by. This place is fantastic. Wish I’d booked a month!
Someone came round to fix the cooker so I made a bacon sarnie (it’s the simple things when you’ve had to eat out every for every meal for seven weeks) and I’ll be cooking a proper dinner later too. Craig is at Ringa Ringa, the wind has picked up so he’s probably lost about a dozen golf balls but he’ll still be having the time of his life. ⛳️
I’m completely up to date for the first time on my blog; hoorah! I’m off to make a cup of tea and enjoy the weather as more wind and rain are forecast. I’ll update tomorrow on Craig’s night trip and our morning trip tomorrow to Ulva Island.
Happy Friday everyone! X
💃🏼🪩 MORNING DISCO 🪩 🕺
This one’s for Sarah and Anna, two of my cousins on the Isle of Lewis…
This song came on the radio the other day whilst we were travelling between destinations. It’s a great song that I’ve loved for a long time but it now has a fairly new memory attached to it and that’s from a night out in Stornoway on the Isle of Lewis in May last year with Sarah and Anna. We’d had a great night out (Anna’s first since Sorcha had been born only a few weeks before) and afterwards we went back to her place to watch the Ukraine “beat” our Sam in the Eurovision and then we played lots of songs including this one until the wee hours. Brilliant night.
This place is also very reminiscent of the Outer Hebrides in many ways – feeling wise, the remoteness, the effort needed to get here, how wildlife is respected (yeah, aside from rich buggars shooting stuff in Uist but they have to do it here in The Southlands on the mainland too to keep the destructive deer population down), the sense of community plus some pretty Scottish sounding place names. Plus I’m sitting in a garden with lovely flowers beloved by butterflies. Therefore Iris (1998) by the Goo Goo Dolls is a very fitting song indeed. Greetings and lots of love to all our family in Lewis – Uncle David, Aunty Mary, Daniel, Sarah, John, Anna + Paul, Melody and Sorcha – as well as the very lovely Rachel and Colin in North Uist.
9 March
The journey from Te Anau to Invercargill is a little lacking in landscape features. I’m being kind. It was dull and two hours seemed a lot longer. Luckily NZ has some excellent (rock based) radio stations so poor Craig had to listen to me singing along – loudly and out of tune; the way songs are supposed to be sung in cars! Sarah taught me that on our first holiday together (caravanning in Walberswick on the Suffolk coast in 1988). Not because she sings out of tune 🤐 but because she doesn’t like people singing under their breath in the car. Quite right!
Invercargill is not a pretty city. Enough said I think.
We parked up and headed into the airport. It’s small – one Stewart Island Flights checkin desk and two Air NZ ones. We only had a maximum of 15 kg allowance each so we’d spent some time the afternoon before trying to sort it out – I had to get my own 31 kg (yep, I’ve taken light backpacking to heart 😆) down considerably… we were both a smidge under, mine by only 100g!!! No celeb spotting this time.
The guy that checked us in also later took us out to our plane and I jokingly asked “are you flying the plane too?” Yes he was. 😳 It was like one of those comedies where you’re not sure if there are twins working in the same place.
Ah, that’s made me reminisce about many many happy lunches at Le Gavroche before they moved to dinner service only – completely out of my price range 😞. Many people didn’t even realise there were twins working there. They’ve been there for 22 years! I get bored well before 22 months. Although – if you’re reading this CG – I could never get bored at Triptease and I’d love to come back! 😜
Just googled this – “Front-of-house stalwarts Sylvia and Ursula Perberschlager, the Austrian identical twins between them speak seven languages”. Impressive. I first went to Le Gav with Aunty Shirley and Uncle Paul after losing a year-long bet in 1994. I paid. That was the deal. I fell in love with it and can’t count how many times I’ve been back. I’ve also been with Mum & Max, Debs and Ant. Plus many others who haven’t been sent my blog link. I even persuaded my boss Heidi to pay for me and two of my recruitment suppliers once. Ah, the heady days and massive budgets of the tobacco industry in 2012. Miss those! I’ve sat on a table next to Sir David Attenborough, chatted numerous times to Michel Roux and eaten some absolutely delicious meals. BRING BACK THE LUNCH PLEASE MICHEL!
Right, so, back to the present …
I’m not sure what I was expecting but it wasn’t a ten seater with sofas, yes, sofas! The lovely lady behind me (whom we’ve bumped into numerous times on the island in the last 20 hours – yes, it’s a small place) gave me neck massages to help me with my fear as we took off. I asked if she could pour me a wine too! I was fine once we were up and the weather was glorious so it was a smooth swift 20 minute crossing. The alternative is a potentially bumpy ferry crossing of the Roaring 40’s which Tracey warned me off doing many years ago…
One passenger had to sit next to the pilot – Craig wants to do that on the way back if he can get to the front of the queue. Good luck with that!
We were transferred quickly to “town” by bus with our suitcases in a trailer. Our AirBnB place included a vehicle rental and it was parked (unlocked, keys inside – this is Stewart Island folks!) about 50 yards from the drop off point. Oban, the “capital” sits in Half Moon Bay (apologies for the use of all the “ “!) – it is tiny and characterful. It’s reminiscent of many places we’ve been in Scotland. Hence probably the name! Our place was a five minute drive away at the end of the fantastically named Butterfield Beach.
Now, I’m not being selfish by taking this place off a deserving family of 12 (sleeping capacity) but it’s hard to book accommodation here and a five bedroom house (!) was all I could find.
No keys, the door was unlocked and all the windows were open (still haven’t found any keys and if this blog starts a spate of burglaries on the island I’ll be livid) and I (obviously) unpacked all my stuff immediately. Craig’s is still all in his suitcase which hasn’t even made it out of the living room yet…
It’s massive. It’s so nice to be in a home after staying lots of tiny rooms. Love it. Here’s the great view from our living room window.
We went for a drive around a few of the roads, stopped off to admire the views and listen to the birds, had a drink in the only pub, met my masseuse 😆, went for walks on beautiful beaches and popped into the supermarket.
On one beach the seaweed was massive- never seen anything like it so forgive me as I post lots of pictures of seaweed… and great views and the lovely beaches of course.
We then returned to the pub to have dinner which was really nice. Went home, watched a bit of TV for the first time, went to bed, slept well for the first time in ages.
💃🏼🪩 MORNING DISCO 🪩 🕺
We’re going to talk about Granddad Gibbs again…many many happy memories 🙂.
He used to make up brilliant stories when I was younger and I absolutely loved those times with him. He went through a stage of weaving Rod Stewart into all the stories, a bit random but he really liked him! I remember snippets of one that included me and Rod Stewart on a motorbike heading off somewhere to buy sweets!
Rod is touring NZ in early April. The radio stations are full of his songs. Baby Jane was played on one of them the other day. When we were in Ibiza in 1985 (me, Lizzie, Grandma and Granddad) the hotel we are staying in had a disco until midnight every night. Even though Lizzie was only nine we were allowed to stay to the very end. Every night. Brilliant. We used to giggle at the German couples (sorry Bettina!) doing Latin ballroom type dancing to disco songs and I have an extremely clear memory of one particularly vigorous couple swinging each other around the dance floor to Baby Jane which we all thought was hilarious. So you see – it’s written in the stars, I have no choice, we’re on Stewart Island, it has to be Baby Jane (1983).This one’s for you our lovely Granddad.