Stewart Island

Most tourists go from Queenstown to Milford Sound and back in 1 day.  I decided to go with Stray Travel and stay at Gunn's Camp after Milford Sound, then travel south to Invercargill.  Gunn's Camp is about 30 minutes from Milford Sound and is an old work camp built during the depression.  Invercargill is an old sealing and whaling town in the 18th and 19th centuries and is at the southern tip of South Island.  The sealing and whaling stopped because they were over-fished so the town is struggling to keep its citizens from moving to other cities in New Zealand.  

From Invercargill, we took a 1-hour ferry to Stewart Island.  The whole island is a Nature Preserve but there are about 400 residents there.  In the summer the population goes up as this is a very popular tourist spot.  There is no skydiving or river rafting that you find in other places.  Here it's mostly fishing, hiking, bird-watching, etc.  Tourists come here for a quiet time and get away from the crowd.  Therefore, tourism is the main livelihood here besides fishing.  Fishing is mostly blue cod and crayfish, which is kind of a smaller version of a lobster.  There are also some oyster farms here.

On the afternoon that we arrived at the island, a few of us hiked along the coast near the town.  The town forms only a small part of the island.  If you want a longer hike, there are trails built for hikes up to 3 days.  There are huts along the way where you can spend the night.  A couple of girls on my bus went on a 3-day hike on the island.  The island is quite big, probably about 500 square miles.

Ferry Terminal

Half-moon Bay and the Ferry Terminal in front of the town

One of the beaches along the route that we hiked

A couple of Kaka birds that don't seem to be afraid of people

Local raw oysters, about NZ$4 each.

They have eliminated most of the animal pests that they get on North and South Islands.  The island also does not allow cats or dogs because they want to protect the birds.  At the elementary school near the ferry terminal, the kids keep a couple of sheep as pets.  Sheep are usually very shy.  Whenever our bus drives by a flock of sheep, they will run when they hear the noise from the bus.  However the 2 sheep at this school are so used to people that you can touch and cuddle them.  

"Spongeball"

The kids and Spongeball