Friday, 25 Feb. Today we drive to the extreme southern point of the South Island, catching a ferry across the Foveaux Strait (20 miles) to Stewart Island. A long drive ahead, moving down out of the mountains, takes us through farmland almost all the way to Invercargill. We pass one sheep station (New Zealand farm) after another. By now, we must have seen a million sheep, Glenna's been counting them to help her go to sleep! This has become the most familiar view while driving through the country, but then it does have 10 sheep for each person, that is 40 million sheep! What we didn't expect was to see a great number of large deer farms. New Zealand, we were told, has 1.2m farmed deer and accounts for 50% of the world's venison market. What we don't see are many houses, so we can't figure out who is taking care of all these animals. The stations or farms must be enormous. Certainly the fields in which the stock are grazing are vast, and they seem to stretch endlessly to the mountains on the horizon.

We go through Invercargill, the largest town on the Southern coast, where all of the streets are named after Scottish rivers, then we're at the town of Bluff, as far south as you can get on the South Island. The one hour ferry ride to Stewart Island crosses the Foveaux Strait, which many people have delighted in telling us is more often than not one of the roughest boat rides you can take. Fortunately, we had the last laugh as the water was calm as a lake and it was a lovely smooth crossing. Our hostess for the next two days met us and four other guests at the dock, we loaded our gear onto the van and drove through the small fishing port and harbor town of Oban, home to the island's full-time population of 380. The Stewart Island Lodge is on a hillside looking out over Oban, with the town's buildings scattered around the water's edge and up the slopes behind. It reminds us of a small seaside village in New England. The Lodge doesn't serve dinner, and we learned there are two places to eat in Oban. Tonight we opt for Kai Kart, which is a fish shack made from a converted railway carriage. Our host was a surly German named Kurt, who could benefit from a refresher course at hospitality school. Sit down restaurant is closed, but we can get takeaway and eat at the picnic table outside, we are told. So we order some oysters to eat while waiting for our Blue Cod and chips to be made. These locally raised Bluff Oysters were amongst the best we've tasted. They serve their fish and chips in paper, around which they wrap newspaper, just like the old days. Needless to say, it's delicious-miles better than Fremantle.

Saturday morning we head out first to the Stewart Island Museum (of course), which is open every day and staffed by volunteers. Two rooms contain a wide range of artefacts, including early whaling kit; domestic possessions of Victorian residents, like a time capsule of the settlers' lives on the island; lots of photos and documents. Then we walk over the hill to another bay, where we catch the 12 noon water taxi for Ulva Island. We pay our fares to a woman sitting by the dock, knitting. She gives us each a boat ticket, which is a single six inch long leaf from the Muttonbird Scrub bush, that feels almost like leather and has the word "Enjoy" written on it. We had just learned in the museum that until the 1920s these leaves were used as post cards by sailors and were accepted and posted by the mail service.

Ulva is a small island set aside as a bird sanctuary many years ago. They eradicated all of the bird predators from the island and now it is home to many species of bird, of which some are found only here. We had a pamphlet that pictured and described all the birds likely to be found, and a map showing the walking trails, which are very well marked. The boats are allowed to land on one small beach only, where a family lived a century ago and ran the local mail service for all the nearby islands (raising a flag when the mail boat had arrived to alert other islands). Today no one lives on the island and it is almost entirely owned/managed by the Department of Conservation, which maintains the trails. The walks are mainly through rain forest, and lead to a series of beaches. The water taxi driver told us that if we take our time and stop occasionally, we are more likely to see the birds as they react to movement more than sound. Sure enough, our first stop brought two Stewart Island Robins to us. They are similar in shape and size to the UK robin, but colouring is gray-black back and wings and white breast. They are also as unafraid of people as our robins, being perfectly happy to peck away at the ground near our feet. In all, we identified 7 types of birds, which we were pretty pleased with. We brought sandwiches to eat on the beach, and discovered a lot about the habits of the Weka, a small brown shore bird. Two wekas joined us on our beach towel and continually tried to peck at our food and our feet. No fear on their part, and they made a continuous noise as if talking to us. What pests!

Dinner in the local hotel (the only other place to eat) was noticeably short staffed due to a local wedding--the less said about that meal the better. We had booked seats on a boat that left at 8:15 pm for another part of Stewart Island, accessible only by boat, to try and see the famous Kiwi. These trips always happen at night as the kiwi feeds at night and so is more likely to be found. Before arriving in New Zealand, we had no idea that the bird might be endangered. In fact, there are only a few places in the country that kiwi are still living and nesting, and all the sites are well protected. This place on Stewart Island is one of only 2 or 3 places that you actually see them in the wild. We are a group of about 20, heading out on a 30 minute boat ride, during which we were privileged to be accompanied part of the way by two Royal Albatross, who swooped and glided with their 8 foot wing spans, around and in front of our boat. Once at the landing place, we were given a short talk about the kiwi's habits and told what to do and not to do if and when we saw the kiwi (there's no guarantee you will see one on these trips). Armed with flashlights as by now it was dark, we trooped single file along a rough path through the woods for about 20 minutes, til we reached a beach. There our guide stopped, gathered us around him and we all turned out our lights. He told us there was a kiwi behind him (how on earth did he know, we hadn't heard the kiwi's distinct cry, it was dark). He turned his light on low, and shone it indirectly at a kiwi that was about 6 to 8 feet away, using its distinctive long curved beak to bore into the sand looking for food. We had to stay very quiet as the kiwi is more sensitive to sound than to sight, and watched her for a good long while until something startled her and she ran off into the undergrowth. The guide turned off his light again, we walked down the beach, and repeated the experience twice more. The bird has a very round body, at least with its feather covering it appears so, and as it has no wings it seems impossible that it should be able to stand upright on its skinny legs but it does. The bird is quite vulnerable as it can't fly to escape predators and is a potent symbol of what we all stand to lose if we don't conserve and cherish our natural resources. What a privilege it was to see the kiwi—many New Zealanders we've talked to have never seen their national icon.