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Exploring the Island

The main trail ran roughly through the middle of Ulva Island in the midst of unspoilt forest. The forest was so thick it was often hard to believe we were on a very small island.

We saw many birds here, though they were all hidden deep in the trees. There were the kaka, a parrot closely related to the kea, but living at much lower levels. It was a deep green colour, the same as the colour of the forest. Completely camouflaged you could only hear it through its raspy communications.

I wondered if these birds, being so intelligent, actually had their own language. I thought that was an absolute possibility. Most birds seem to have some form of language within their vocalisations.

Large gnarly trees created a thick canopy blocking out the sky above. Smaller straight trees awaiting their turn to take their place in the upper canopy along with many tree ferns made much of the middle cover. The larger trees had many epiphytes including orchids. The ground was largely covered in ferns and mosses. It was a very green ecosystem.

There was a wide variety of ferns here, everything from the tiny filmy ferns to the tough ground cover ferns to several varieties of tree fern. The narrow well graded track passed through the otherwise impossible to navigate foliage. Supplejack in particular made the terrain almost impossible. There were a few plastic marker ribbons occasionally hanging in the trees to mark the different sectors on the island for the scientists who studied the wildlife here.

There was a saddleback bird – a bird that has a black body with a bright orange red back. These have been long extinct on the mainland, but there was still a good population here and on a few other offshore islands. Very few New Zealanders ever see these amazing birds, and here was one up in the trees above me.

A little further down the track Furhana pointed out a kiwi nest. Kiwis are ground dwelling flightless birds that spend their time foraging the forest litter for bugs. They live in burrows they dig under large trees. There would have been a kiwi asleep somewhere deep in its burrow. The entrance seemed to be incredible vulnerable. All you would need is a predator such as a cat or dog to go in to kill it. No wonder they are confined only to very isolated pockets on the mainland now.

Nearby were some hen and chicken ferns. These are named as miniature ferns sprout off the ends of the leaves in the fronds. These can be removed and grown as new ferns.

We followed some stairs up beside a tree to where a parakeet was sitting on the foliage above. The parakeet had dark green plumage as do most parrots here, but it had a bright red crown and a grey beak. Nearby I found a parakeet feather – it had beautiful metallic shades of blue and green in its outer half going to grey at the nearest end underside.

Suddenly a weka appeared along the path walking amongst us. Wekas are similar to kiwis but a lot more common. They have a lighter shade of grey hairy feathers.

After about an hour of exploring the deep forest in the island we suddenly came out onto a beach. Although the sky was still dull and overcast, everything seemed to be incredibly bright having spent the past hour deep in the forest.

The beach was a dull golden buff orange colour from the granite that makes up Stewart Island, The beach had layers of deposited seaweed debris with successive recent high tides. Behind the beach was a row of dead small trees.

There was a small rocky island just offshore and beyond it the beach swept into an exposed headland. From just before where we had come out the forest had suddenly given way to thick scrub. On the other side of the headland was the westernmost part of the island, exposed to the prevailing south westerlies. Further offshore were a number of rocky reefs just poking above the surface.

There was a weka foraging on the beach. At the near end was a rounded headland. Looking across the inlet were the very dark hills of the northern side of Stewart Island. From here there was no civilisation to be seen. Oban was tucked away well out of sight further along the coast. All the land we could see here was original forest.

That gave this beach a real feeling of remoteness. Even the trail we had just come from had disappeared from view. The only sign of human life here was our small group of ten people.

Once we had finished morning tea at the beach we headed off back along the track, following a boardwalk for a while passing again the weka we had earlier seen and eventually arriving back at Post Office Point. Just before we finished, Furhana pointed out the oldest plant specimen on the island, a tassel fern that has been around unaltered for four hundred million years. This variety was amongst the first plants to start inhabiting dry land when the once toxic atmosphere became safe to inhabit.

Here the group split off into two. About half the group had done the half day tour which was finishing now. Five of us were left in the full day tour. Those in the half day tour walked to the jetty to catch the small boat whilst the rest of us walked to Sydney Cove for lunch.

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