Stewart Island Day 5

18 July - A 5 hour cruise in the open sea from Port Pegasus in the far south back to Port William, north of Oban.  Conditions were good and we once again spent a lot of time enjoying watching the albatrosses being attracted by fish scraps.  

A Cape Pigeon (seabird)

Raising a sail

In the afternoon we walked for about 1 1/2 hours from Magnetic beach to Maori beach

After our walk we cruised back to Glory Cove in Paterson Inlet for the night.  Along the way some bottle-nosed dolphins played around our ship.  Didn't manage to photograph them unfortunately.

Stewart Island Day 4

17 July - Bald Cone, Port Pegasus.  Today we did our most strenuous walk of the week, a climb up to Bald Cone.  Although only 236m high there is no proper track and we had to bush bash a bit to get up and it took us over an hour to reach the summit.  Although the weather was cool, drizzly and windy it was very exhilarating to be at the top of this granite cone.  This photo of Bald Cone was taken after our return to the Milford Wanderer - the weather had improved considerably!

 Views of Gog and Magog - famous peaks in southern Stewart Island

Working our way up Bald Cone

Made it!

The Milford Wanderer far below

Group photo - our cook Stefan is the long legged guy in the front.

Working our way down - lots of slipping, laughter and sometimes the scrub was over our heads. See the Milford Wanderer in Albion inlet.

On the tender, back for a well earned lunch.

Afternoon outing to Broad Bay

Broad Bay - keeping our distance from sea lions.  This was the southernmost point of our journey at 47 deg South. 

We saw five male sea lions on the beach and another female in the surf.   Photos taken by Owen with big telephoto lens!

Stewart Island Day 3

16 July - Port Adventure to Port Pegasus.  Some open sea travel in the morning to reach Port Pegasus, the southernmost part of our journey.  It was a bit "up and down" on the way there and it took the crew a while to find a sheltered place to anchor in this large inlet.  We took a ride in the tender to view the ruins of an old fish freezer station and also the Belltopper falls.  We spotted a female sea lion in the water.

Belltopper falls

We were then taken for a one hour walk to view the Tin Range.  There were still some ruins of the tin mining days along the way.

Tin Range

What we did with our life jackets while out walking

Stewart Island Day 2 continued

After a sumptuous lunch on board we cruised out into the open sea from Paterson Inlet to Port Adventure.  Our nature guide threw fish scraps out and lots of albatross soon arrived which were fantastic to watch and photograph (Owen's photographs)

White capped albatross

Buller's Mollymawk

Albatross feeding frenzy

We cruised through some quite narrow gaps! 

And the sea got a little rough

Port Adventure, another beach walk.  Our nature guide Chris carried a ladder to help people up a  bank.

White sand and life jackets still on.

Heading back to the Milford Wanderer.  We had time to try some sea kayaking in Port Adventure before it got too dark.

Stewart Island Day 2 - Ulva Island bird sanctuary

 15 July - We spent the morning visiting Ulva Island bird sanctuary.  It was a beautiful 2 1/2 hour walk and we saw and heard a great many native birds.

The old Post Office building on Ulva Island

Kakariki

More golden sand

Weka

Life on board the Milford Wanderer

The Milford Wanderer

On the bridge - we could visit any time.  Skipper Royden right, and Mate Deon left.

Entry in the visitors'  book for our journey

Dining area 

Royce's bunk.  We were lucky to have a roomy 4 berth cabin to ourselves.

Sighting a kiwi on our first day!

14 July - In the afternoon we anchored in Glory cove.  Our second outing on this, our first day, was a walk across a low ridge to Ocean beach.  Here we saw kiwi footprints in the sand and prod marks made by the kiwi's beak.  Then to our delight a kiwi was spotted in a sea cave at the edge of the beach.  It was not easy to see it in the dark hollow.

Kiwi with its beak open

Photographing the kiwi!

Beach scenery on our walk