Stuart island – Ulva and Kidney Fern

The plan for our next day at Stewart Island was to visit Ulva Island in Patterson Inlet. Ulva is completely free of invasive species and is home to a wife variety of bird life native to New Zealand. Our day began by motoring from our anchorage at Little Glory to anchor up off Ulva Island.

First a few shots taken at daybreak – pretty spectacular.

Iron Lady anchored off Ulva.

The water here is a beautiful, crystal clear green color with lots of kelp.

Ulva was home to the southern most post office in the world at almost 50 degrees south.

There are a variety of walks and we chose the one to West End Beach. Lots of nice scenery on the way out so here are a bunch of photos along the way.

There was a bird in this picture but I can’t seem to locate it now. In general, the birds were vey hard to spot in the dense native bush. Certainly could hear them everywhere though.

There was one variety that was particularly fearless – while you are not supposed to feed them, clearly these little guys have won the hearts of many and were very adept at begging for food.

On with the photos.

Here are some shots at West End Beach where we also spotted a Weka.

After our outing at Ulva, it was off to Kidney Fern Arm where we intended to a anchor for the night.

Near the anchorage was someones mobile bush shack.

Pretty neat way to view Stuart Island. The following were taken as we approached the anchorage.

Once we were secure it was off in Beer Can to explore a whaling station that used to be in the area. The station was used to rebuild the whaling vessels that hunted in the Ross Sea during the whaling season. In the off season, the vessels were brought here to be rebuilt from the punishing service they saw.

The following plaques detailed life at the whaling station.

A variety of artifacts were still around including the concrete foundations of the buildings, an old boiler, ruined props, and even a boat that was sunk to serve as a wharf. The wreck is submerged but still much intact. You can see the sampson post above the water in the picture.

Finally some shots once we were back aboard our gal and the sun was going down.

It is no wonder that one of the Maori names for Stewart is Rakiura – roughly translated to mean the land of the glowing skies.
For those of you who might some day travel here and see Rakiura first hand, I will close with a picture of of the definitive guide for cruising Stewartt Island.