Joanne arrives in Oban from Hamilton
I woke Saturday to a reasonable morning had breakfast and set about getting the boat ‘shipshape’ for the arrival of Jo today at Stewart Island. I text her to make sure she made the plane for Christchurch and received a reply around 9:45am once she had landed there. The next flight would see Jo in Invercargill, a longer flight in a slower plane, then an even smaller plane for the short leg from Invercargill to Stewart Island. Once Jo landed she enquired with the driver where the shuttle bus stopped and discovered that it only stopped at the depot so I went ashore and headed for Oban. I went to the pub cafe for a coffee, as I was a little early, they were really good team in there. It was interesting how many of the staff had Irish accents and the cheerful disposition that often goes with the Irish. I guess the climate resembled home and they felt comfortable here in the small village atmosphere. I saw the mini bus arrive through the window after about half an hour and made my way along the street to meet Jo. It was a warm welcome, we were both pleased to see each other again. After taking her large suitcase we made our way back to the pub for lunch. I noted there was a cab outside so I took down the number as I didn’t fancy lugging the suitcase up over the hill to Golden Bay.
We had a Cod burger for lunch that was really massive, so we decided that we would have to walk it off! We left the suitcase in the small lobby while we explored the few businesses in Oban. After a short time (this place is microscopic) we were back at the hotel. I noticed the cab had gone but phoned to discover he was now unavailable till after 4:00pm. I went into the lobby and asked Helen (the land lady) if there was another cab and she replied, “no sorry that is the only one”. She immediately responded with, “oh you can take my car if you like”, then she remembered it had a flat tyre so she said, “come with me and I will drop you there in my other car”. Where does that ever happen then? With that, Helen stood up from behind the desk and just walked straight out with us to drop us off, didn’t even let anyone know where she was going! What a clever plan to secure business for the pub, we immediately felt indebted to her. I am sure there were no expectations though, just a genuine nice local looking after another couple of tourists.
Jetty with the tide out and preparing to load a large suitcase on board - carefully!
On arriving back at the dinghy which I had tied to the wharf in Golden Bay, to find the tide was well out and there was only a ladder to climb down to the dinghy. I climbed part way down first, then Jo passed the bag down and climbing down after me. We were soon back on board Horizon III and getting Jo settled in for the next 9 days. We went back into town around 5:30 and after a short walk around Oban, went to the pub for a Pinot or two. The best wine in the house was a Stoneleigh Pinot Noir, so we settled for that. We watched two rounds of the boxing on TV ( David Nyika) and before the final round the locals switched over to watch the league (Warriors) who ended up loosing to the Broncos. Jo text her brother to stay in touch with the fight and we were delighted to hear that David took out the Gold, particularly after past disappointments over recent years. He was looking much bigger, stronger and faster, certainly looked to be in control of the contest! We met a couple who were spending a few days at Stewart Island who had arrived in the bar earlier in the day and never left! They were still sober and we had a good old chat, it was clear we wouldn’t be learning anything about Stewart Island from them! We took the walk over the hill at around 7:00pm back to the boat in Golden Bay and made ourselves a light meal. Tomorrow we planned to travel to Ulva Island inside Paterson Inlet, a beautiful; sanctuary with an interesting history.
We continue to find visiting boats poorly catered for in many NZ locations. Everything is sign posted ‘private jetty’ do not leave boats unattended! Or alternatively there is just nothing at all. How about a simple shallow water jetty to allow visitors to embarkdisembark which says ‘visitors only’ or better still simply, ‘Visitors Welcome’.
The system is all geared for the locals, which I understand, but we are a tourism dependant nation, surely we can do better?? I have been in touch with Port of Otago regarding renting a visitors berth, ha what a joke, they don’t even have one!! If I hadn’t met Peter, by chance, in Stewart Island I would have no plan B at all. Looks like I will be taking up his generous offer after all, that of using his berth in Careys Bay - Port Chalmers. I had a chat with the Harbourmaster in Dunedin too and he was a little embarrassed that he couldn’t help us out, so I hope he can use our experience and those of others before us, to lobby for their facility to be made workable. Apparently, what is there, is in a state of disrepair and is unusable. Most poorly serviced ports in NZ acknowledge that their services are totally inadequate for visiting boats and that they should do something about it. It will be interesting to see if anything changes? I don’t mind sitting at anchor as long as there is a method of getting ashore safely and without getting drowned! Very much doubt anything will change anytime soon though - so we just continue to bend the rules a little here and there and plead ignorance!
Joanne in front of our short tailed chopper, these are renowned as a sporty and very manoeuvreable machine, perfect in tight landing locations.
Sunday was a reasonable day so we planned to make the most of it. Following breakfast we weighed anchor for Ulva Island, Paterson Inlet, to explore the walks through the native bush. No sooner than the anchor was up my phone rang, it was the local helicopter pilot, Zane asking if we wanted to take our Island tour today, to which I replied, “yes please”! We knew Monday was out for them and the rest of the week was terrible weather, looking at ‘Predict Wind’.
Zane said he would pick us up from the bay so I re-anchored H3, dropped the tender and went ashore. Zane picked us up at the top of the hill then drove us to the helicopter base just out of town. Zane was very flexible about where we went and what we did for the afternoon. He was going to cover most of the Island with a couple of stops, one engine shutdown, where we could spend time exploring on foot. We chose to do a beach walk on the Mason Bay on the west coast. After wheeling the helicopter out of the large hanger he fuelled up, carried out his checks and started the jet turbine. We had the chopper to ourselves and all three of us were in the front for the best views. We were soon airborne and proceeded up the valley towards Benson Peak, we could see the walking track beneath us, following the river. We climbed up over the range and ran down along the shoreline to Mason Bay where we came in to land near a creek, Just as we dropped in a white tail deer shot up the bank from the beach into the bush. We hopped out of the helicopter and began to walk the beach with Zane who told us about Ambergris, sperm whale vomit, which is extremely valuable and has a very distinct odour. This is used by perfume manufacturers to help a scent last a lot longer. A stone the size of your hand would be worth several thousand dollars! To uneducated people like myself, we would walk straight past it as dismiss it as a stone but those in the know will investigate anything of the right shape and colour. It is needless to say a rare find but Stewart Island seems like a likely spot to discover such an item as all sorts, sadly including plastic rubbish, all finding its way to these shores. Zane picked up a plastic Talleys bin that had been lost overboard somewhere and also a float that was quite new. He was unable to recognise the markings that would identify the owner. He put them into the chopper. What was disturbing was the vast amount of plastic bottles, broken heavy duty floats, rolls of plastic tape, Nylon ropes of all size and shape in tangled heaps. It Much of this may have come from as far afield as South America! It is so sad to see the volumes of inorganic waste findings its way to pristine unspoilt places along our coastline. See the photos attached. Zane was also a Paua diver, clearly a man of many talents, this is only allowed by free diving, no breathing apparatus allowed! They take nothing under 137mm across, that is a very large paua! Nothing is wasted, they are exported live to markets overseas. Where the shells are removed locally they are sold and used for the manufacture of jewellery items etc. Paua are prolific in these parts and Zane pointed out splits that are just abundant with this bounty of the sea.
Zane fired up the chopper and we lifted off to vacate over Doughboy Bay which is a huge collector of all sorts of flotsam as well. We headed along the coastline over the Muttonbird Islands which had local harvesters occupying their huts ready for the opening of the season. Muttonbird are rich in Omega 3 and are a very oily meat due in part to their diet of seafood. He says if you want to die you simply stop eating Muttonbird, that is a pretty mean endorsement of the nutritional benefits! I am not ready to try this delicacy yet which apparently tastes very salty more like anchovies. So if you love anchovies you will probably enjoy Muttonbird. The more Jo and I heard about the process of harvesting, the less interested we became; poor we chicks!
Rope and craypot bait plastic containers and odd bits of plastic with more of the same in the photo below. Floats were scattered all along the beach, broken and complete. The fishing industry clearly is contributing more than their share to the plastic waste in our oceans. I imagine a lot of it it lost overboard in the execution of their job and in bad weather. We just need to accept that we should clean it up and take more care wherever possible. Plastic bags and plastic lined cardboard are a big issue
We flew inland slightly and over Gog peak, some 400 metres above sea level, an amazing rocky structure that looked in part, like base rock with a pile of rocks strewn all over each other. It was hard to capture the amazing landscape through the lens of the camera. It simply does not do it justice. We then made our way around South Cape and back up towards Paterson Inlet following the shoreline and its many safe havens that Zane was able to point out to us. We landed again beside an almost closed waterway that looked like a lagoon but had a small opening to the sea. It was a beautiful natural landscape, we effectively landed on the wetlands bordering the mini harbour. We climbed back on board and flew up the coast to Paterson Inlet and across Golden Bay where H3 was anchored up. Zane swooped down into the tree clad valley which looked like a valley to nowhere, it looked like total forest but then, in front of us loomed the large hanger facility of Rakiura Helicopters. We were away for at least an hour and a half that’s passed all too quickly. Zane dropped us back to town and we expressed our thanks for sharing his knowledge and passion for the Island and its lifestyle. We stopped at.......... you guessed it, the pub for lunch where we both enjoyed the most fabulous seafood chowder and a coffee. We were recapping the trip and decided after our very late lunch we would head back to the boat where we cooked ourselves a lovely dinner.
Beach at Mason Bay
Zane and I taking a wander - notes the massive sea kelp. Zane proceeded to carve a cricket size ball from a hunky section. I threw it some distance to see it bounce just like a ball. It was a very firm rubbery material with considerable mass, which is why Robin and I spend so much time avoiding it when travelling around the Islands, we didn’t fancy untangling this from the propellers!.
Chopper in Mason Bay
Typical west coast beach Stewart Island style
We landed near the sandy spit right hand corner of the photo
Kiwi footprint and the holes he made digging for those clear sand lice?
Horizon III in the middle of Thule Bay - alongside Golden Bay. We were heading back to the hanger.