Kiwi Hunting
After 9 days of bog we decided to head for Stewart Island, were the mud is famous…but we weren’t going to walk, we decided to treat ourselves to a flight to a place called Mason Bay were you are likely to be able to see kiwi in the wild.We were the only two passengers on the six (including the pilot) seater plane and the views over the island were fantastic. We swept in low to Mason Bay (a 9 mile beach) the pilot looking for a good spot to land…we then pulled in sharpish flew back turned sharply and went in to land. It was quite exciting! We got off andoff he went again, and we really felt on our own.
We stayed in Mason Bay ut – which was a really nice $5 DOC hut (certainly better than the ones on the Dusky!) But our main mission was to find kiwis…
…so out we went around dusk, 9.50pm, it gets dark late here! We walked up a path, not really sure what we were looking or listening out for. After about half an hour of nothing I turned round and headed back to the hut. It was getting quite dark at this point and just as I was entering a really dark bit of the path overhung with trees, I nearly stepped on a kiwi, which scampered off down the path – it scared the life out of me!
I quietly followed it into the dark, but could only hear it calling – a high pitched whistle repeated about 12-15 times. I could then hear its mate calling back and some more scampering down the path. As I slowly walked down they both stepped into the path infront of me. I couldn’t really see them in detail, but they were larger than I expected, luckily Nick turned up at this point and he saw them too! Iit was so darkthere could have been two people holding kiwi shaped puppets in the dark keeping the tourists happy! The joys of looking for nocturnal animals! This website describes SI kiwis in detail (and has pictures!)
The next day we walked over to Freshwater Landing – a nice flat 3 1/2 hour walk through manuka trees and the occasional bog, followed by (on the following day) a water taxi to Halfmoon Bay (or Oban as it is also known), before a flight back to the mainland. Happy in our sort of view of a kiwi!!
Tags: Kiwi, New Zealand, Stewart Island, Travel, Trek
Jenni
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