 |
| Stewart Island |
Next on the travel list was Stewart Island (Also known as Rakiura or "Land of the blushing skies" thanks to it's incredible sunrise/sets!). Having met up with Monique in Dunedin we drove through the Catlins to Invercargil. I should mention, cos I'm proud of it, I have been sharing some of the driving responsibility as we have travelled around and my driving experience is slowly racking up! On attempting to go and buy a bottle of wine we discovered that a) NONE of the supermarkets stock alcohol (VERY unusual in NZ) and b) All the liqour stores shut at 7pm. What. The. Hell. Still, at least Burger King was open.
Eventually we made it to The Bluff and took the ferry across to Stewart Island. It was an... interesting journey. At first Monique and I were right up the front trying to get as thrown around as possible (it was quite a rough sea) however, soon Monique's recently consumed Jimmy's pie revisited us, much to her dismay. Fun times. (You may kill me for this Monique but it had to be mentioned!)
On our first full day on the island we hiked around the Southern end of the bay the one and only village (Oban) is situated in. As we walked past one of the further out houses outside there was a giant skull. Through sheer curiosity the temptation was too much to knock on the door and find out what the hell it was. Turns out it was a whale bone! Bloody impressive thing that! As it happened the owner of the house is a German called Malter who is in the sausage business. Typical. He also dabbles in steel and water taxi's but I find the sausage making funniest.. as he's German and all.. Our brief visit lead to us being invited to his later that evening and again the next day! He's pretty damn rich so we were treated to his best champagne and 4 bottles of wine. We all got relatively drunk... and I may or may not have fallen off the sea wall into a bunch of beach huts on the way to the hostel... fortunately I was unharmed, mostly.
 |
| Sunrise on Stewart Island |
When Monique left to go to her new job in Omarama (after failing to leave twice, once for laziness and the second for missing the ferry) and sailed off into the sunrise which was very magical (sunrise is at 8am) I decided to get out and explore some more of the island, see what these long legs of mine can do! Turns out they can do 25km in 6 hours quite easily. So I got to see lots of the Northern end of the island and suddenly realised I'd be able to do a lap of the island hiking to all the huts along the footpaths...if I had 10 days to spare. Man I wish I did! Made a name for myself now down the one pub on the island for playing piano and being good at pool, (the latter being a VERY recent development) life is good!! Over the next couple of days I relaxed, hiked to various points of interest and met new people in the hostel playing card games and drinking late into the night. On the final night I was convinced to impart my knowledge on Apple Crumble making by Elena from Switzerland who having tried it at one hostel, was actually addicted.
On our first full day on the island we hiked around the Southern end of the bay the one and only village (Oban) is situated in. As we walked past one of the further out houses outside there was a giant skull. Through sheer curiosity the temptation was too much to knock on the door and find out what the hell it was. Turns out it was a whale bone! Bloody impressive thing that! As it happened the owner of the house is a German called Malter who is in the sausage business. Typical. He also dabbles in steel and water taxi's but I find the sausage making funniest.. as he's German and all.. Our brief visit lead to us being invited to his later that evening and again the next day! He's pretty damn rich so we were treated to his best champagne and 4 bottles of wine. We all got relatively drunk... and I may or may not have fallen off the sea wall into a bunch of beach huts on the way to the hostel... fortunately I was unharmed, mostly.
No comments:
Post a Comment