Prior to walking the Milford Track in Southland, New Zealand, we were fortunate to also spend a day on Stewart Island / Rakiura and Ulva Island. Stewart Island / Rakiura lies about 19 miles south of the South Island of New Zealand, across the Foveaux Strait. Ulva Island lies beyond that again, sitting in the Patterson Inlet, just over two miles off shore.
The first part of the trip was in a small nine-seater plane from Invercargill to Stewart / Rakiura where we literally landed in a field, before taking a mini bus for the short drive in to the main centre of population on Stewart, Oban Township. From there we had a short walk over a steep brae to Golden Bay and then by water taxi from there to Post Office Inlet on Ulva Island. The weather was poor when we arrived but soon brightened up and we spent a large part of the day in pleasant sunshine.
The first part of the trip was in a small nine-seater plane from Invercargill to Stewart / Rakiura where we literally landed in a field, before taking a mini bus for the short drive in to the main centre of population on Stewart, Oban Township. From there we had a short walk over a steep brae to Golden Bay and then by water taxi from there to Post Office Inlet on Ulva Island. The weather was poor when we arrived but soon brightened up and we spent a large part of the day in pleasant sunshine.
- Formerly called Coopers Island, Ulva is approximately 670 acres in size and with its larger neighbour, Stewart / Rakiura, helps to make up the Rakiura National Park. About 85% of Stewart lies within the park boundary and most of Ulva, with only a small area of the latter (centred on the old post office ) still in private hands.
Formed in 2002, it is the newest national park in New Zealand. Ulva’s relative isolation has resulted in it becoming a haven for birds and plants and a number of the flightless birds that New Zealand is famous for can be found here. Some bird species that had become extinct locally have now been returned to the area and continue to do well. The Stewart Island brown kiwi, a flightless bird, outnumbers the people living on Stewart / Rakiura with some twenty thousand of the species thought to be on the island. Other rare species on Ulva include the bellbird, tui, kaka, tomtit, grey warbler, kakariki. New Zealand wood pigeon, weka, robin and fernbird are also to be found here.
In recent years a major effort has been made in New Zealand to eradicate the rat, stoat and ferret population, particularly in the protected areas of national parks to protect birds and young penguins. A very successful exercise on Ulva Island had virtually eradicated the rat and the stoat and, as a consequence, bird life thrived. Bait stations with poison and various kinds of traps are to be seen all over the island. It is odd when you see some of the traps four and five feet off the ground, wedged in the branches of low growing trees and bushes, but the rats and stoats are nothing if not persistent. After a number of years rat-free, in 2011, twelve rats were caught after a visitor had noticed their tracks in the mud on the island. We were accompanied on the boat ride to the island by the ‘rat catcher’ who was making one of her routine visits to the island with her little dog 'Moss'.
As well as providing a home to threatened bird and plant species, the island is also home to the threatened yellow-eyed penguin, which uses the islands shores for breeding purposes. Unique to New Zealand, the yellow-eyed penguin, or ‘hoiho’ to use its Maori name (meaning ‘noise shouter’ because of its strident cry)), is found here on Ulva, Stewart / Rakiura and some of the other smaller southern islands and on some mainland shores.
The bird has a yellow iris and a narrow, distinctive yellow band round its head. They spend an almost equal amount of time between land and sea. On land they require quiet bush / scrubland for breeding, while the sea provides the majority of their diet and a way to move and change location. Cats, dogs, stoats and ferrets are a threat to the young on land, while at sea various predators such as sharks, seals and sea lions take their toll. The clear and present danger was very clear to us when we tried to walk down one of the paths on the island only to find it blocked by a sleeping seal. These are big craturs! We were fortunate that on this occasion the lady who handles Moss the Rat Catcher was on hand to direct the seal back to the beach and clear the way for us.
The other wonderful attraction on Ulva is the ancient podocarp forest that thrives there. These ancient forests hark back to the time when New Zealand was part of the super continent Gondwana. Podocarp forests are a mixture of very tall, majestic hardwood trees that like the light and heat of the sun such as rimu, kahikatea, miro, mataī and tōtara. Below, very lush undergrowth thrives in the shady areas, plants including various shrubs, ferns and tree-ferns grow in abundance. In the Ulva forest there were numerous examples of the phenomenon wherein the fallen tree giants of the forest become the garden plot for a number of the low-lying species. It was not unusual to come across slowly rotting tree trunks playing host to ferns and flowering species; a life beyond a life!
Podocarp Forest & Floor
There are a number of paths that to take you through the forests, ensuring that you get to experience this wonderfully rich sub-tropical environment from the inside out. With forested walks, isolated coves and wonderful beach locations there is a constantly changing scenery, moving from the enclosed places of the forest to the open vistas of the coves and beaches. It is an experience of perceptual excellence, with land, sea and soundscape to delight in with, if you are lucky, the odd penguin, seal or sea lion thrown in to provide a bit of excitement.
Beaches & Coves of Stewart Island