The rare bird of Stewart Island

In beautiful weather, even though it was still quite cold, we took the first ferry to Stewart Island today. The 3rd island of New Zealand. Stewart Island is 97% national park land. There are 20 km of roads and 200 km of hiking trails - that says it all. There is hiking on Stewart Island. The shorter circular hike takes about 3 days, the longer circular hike takes, I think, 11 days. You can sleep in huts along the way, but you have to bring your own food for the time. To be honest, that was too impractical for me. That's why I'm just going on a day trip today, letting myself be driven around the island in a minibus on the roads and in the afternoon I'll take a boat to a smaller island, where there will be a walk across the island.

On the main island there are an incredible number of people, especially young people, with large backpacks (of course, they carry their food with them...). I'm shown some beautiful corners of the island in the minibus and hear stories, for example, of a woman who came from Australia and planted eucalyptus trees on Stewart Island because she was homesick. These have now grown large - but koalas don't sit in them 😀.

As soon as the bus arrives, I rush to the harbor; I have to check in for the boat tour. By the way, no one in New Zealand ever wants to see tickets and printouts. I book some things with an app, and it always tells me that I have to show the QR code. But no one here ever wanted to see something like that. They just want my first name and that's it 🤷🏼‍♀️.

The boat takes you to Ulva Island. There we disembark and our group is split into 3 smaller groups. So we go to the rainforest - watch birds. At the beginning I thought: watching birds - well, there are really more exciting things. But it was really very interesting. The guide explained things very clearly and with a lot of enthusiasm. He was standing right in front of a bird and talking normally, then suddenly started hopping and making quick movements: "You see, the bird doesn't fly away. Wherever you watch birds, the first rule is: Be quiet! Not here! That one Birds have no enemies here, so they know nothing will happen to them and I can be as loud as I want and even quick movements don't scare them."

There is a house on the small island. The island is uninhabited. So why is there a house there? It used to be the Stewart Island Post Office! Because from all the inhabited bays you could see this island. So when the postman got the mail, he raised the flag and everyone could see it. There was then a big meeting on the island.

As we walked along the beach and then into the rainforest, our guide also pointed out the plants there. There is a daisy bush and of course lots of ferns. There is even a tree there that is completely hollow on the inside, with holes at the bottom so you can stick your camera in and take a photo way up.

In the middle of the tour, the guide heard a bird and suddenly became very excited, he ran back and forth and led us off the path and into the middle of the rainforest. There he saw her: little yellow head. They are very rare and threatened with extinction. On Stewart Island they live on the ground and they nest on the ground, although they can fly. But because of the lack of enemies, they can live on the ground. Several specimens of the yellow-headed little ones could be seen. I kept trying to photograph this bird with my phone, but they are pretty fast. But I managed to take 2 photos very well and the guide was soooo happy about my photos: "Can you send me these photos? Can I have them? And can I show them to other groups?" "Of course no problem!" I made the guide very, very happy with 2 photos today 😀.

At the end of the day I saw albatrosses sitting in the water in the harbor. Are they big!!!