Onto Stewart Island

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HELLO friends from Halfmoon Bay in Stewart Island. This is actually one of my favourite spots. This is a very nice peaceful village with just a hotel, a supermarket, a couple of little shops and a few houses. Beyond these houses it's all national park over this huge island. I'll be staying here for nearly a week.

This is the southernmost inhabited town in Polynesia. I've now been to all the corners of the triangle of Polynesia. Last year I went as far as Princetown in Hawaii, the northernmost town (in the triangle). Earlier this year I went to Hangaroa on Easter Island (the eastern corner). This is Halfmoon Bay, Oban. This is the other (southern) corner of Polynesia. So I've been to all three corners now. I've actually been here before, I came in 1994 and again in 2008. It's really great being back here so I'm going to show you around a little bit.

I'm going to do the Rakiura Track starting in a couple of days. Before that I've got a couple of days to explore the area. Today's really quite an amazing day here. It's not often you get it like this. There is not a cloud in the sky but there is a bit of wind. We're expecting 25 degrees which is a heatwave for this part of the country. Today there is a huge amount of variation between light and shade. I'm going to wait for an overcast day before I do any bush photography. Check this out. This is called Bathing Beach. It is the first bay around from Oban. I'm going to be walking around all of these headlands as much as I can.

Well I'm now at the start of the Rakiura Track. It is blowing an absolute gale here but I'll get out of the wind a bit. This is the track I'm going to be doing in two days' time. I've come all the way out from Halfmoon Bay to here, but will be taking a more direct route. As you can see the sea is pretty rough today with it blowing a real gale. But this sculpture is the anchor chain of Maui. The Maori legend has it that the South Island which you may be able to see on the horizon out there was the canoe of Maui. The North Island was a big fish he pulled up. They say that Stewart Island is the anchor stone for the canoe. So because of that legend, this sculpture chain has been built to commemorate that. Anyway I've got to go all the way back to Oban as it is a bit story which is pretty massive out there now. I'm going to head back and rest as I've been walking much of the day.

I'm now half way back between Horseshoe Bay and Halfmoon Bay, just at the top of this hill here. It's been quite a climb. This is very interesting - the famous telephone in a tree and a very old phone book here. Let's see if this works "E.T. phone home...". Nope. Maybe you need to crank this up. This has been attached to a very big rimu tree.

Of course things have moved on quite a bit since then (the days of this telephone) with the mobile phones and smart phones we have now. I'm going to check something (that sounds like a tui). I don't know if you can see here, I always carry a little map on my phone. I've done the pink route today going around the points there along the walkways and up to Lee Bay which is way up there. Now I'm coming back and about here, so more than half way home now, to where I'm staying. I always like to carry a little map with me on the phone. It's really handy having a phone. You just take a picture of it. I only use the camera on the phone to take photos of maps and similar things so I can quickly refer to it as I'm travelling to see what sort of progress I'm making. I would have never thought a couple of decades ago you would use a telephone to take pictures. That's what telephones were like, though not many of them were in trees like this. So this is the famous telephone tree. I'm going to rest for a while before continuing along the road past the bays.

A for sale sign over there... very tempting...