Oban, Stewart Island— 7th November, 2025

 

We have another birthday today.

Happy 50th Birthday to Evka.

Enjoy your day Evka and let your boys pamper you.

🌸🎈🥳🎈🌼

This fellow pops up around the place a lot. One police car, and one policeman. 

We See him around this tiny town several times a day.  One fire engine and 15 fireman. Combined primary and Intermediate School with 36 kids and three teachers. No high school, the kids have to go to  Boarding School in Invercargill or Dunedin. 400 to 500 residents in the community and about 2,000 on the island including the tourist. People who live here don’t have letter-boxes at their homes. They have to go to the Flight booking office  in the village, to pick up their mail.

We went on a one and half hour minibus tour. Not a lot of roads but lots we didn’t cover. I thought we would have covered the lot in that time but no. The tour wasn’t as good as I thought it would be. Passing along the coast not even stopping for photos where two beautiful beaches were. Hence haven’t taken many photos. I feel we should rent a car for a couple of hours tomorrow and see it all but looks like the weather is closing in then. First stop above at a lookout point looking down over Golden Bay. Mainly a fishing community of eight fishing boats. Numbers have decreased. As you can see the cloud built up today unfortunately. 

Looking down over the Golden Bay inlet. Where the fishing boats operate from.

Closer look into the inlet.

A video over Golden Bay

After going up to the top the hill to the above lookout we came back down then drove further around the coast road east. To a little beach called Lonnekers Beach.

Zooming in behind the Island, (in previous photo) is a sheltered spot for boats. No doubt more fishing boats.

Lonnekers beach looking the other way.

We are now out at Mamaku PointThis monument is of a large chain which represents the connection from Stewart Island to Bluff where there is a similar monument.

Going up the hill and rolling down to the sea.

Rolling down to the sea.

Above Lee Bay this monument is where the telephone cable came over from Bluff  in 1902 making connections to Stewart Island which was always dependent upon small sailing vessels for communications with the mainland. Then the cable was continued 5km over bush-clad hills from here to the telephone exchange in Oban in Halfmoon Bay.

Lee bay where the telephone cable came in from Bluff.

Looking down the other end of the Lee Bay looking up to see a fence which was installed around the point to keep the rodents out to protect our native birds including the Kiwi. They tell us there are about 18,000 to 25,000 Kiwi in these conservation areas. They have even been seen walking down the Main Street in Oban at night.

This is the bus we travelled on. It would be nice to see more of the Island in a rental car tomorrow but don’t think the weather is going to be too good. Looks like a lot of rain so wouldn’t see anything.

End of the day now in the Pub about to have a drink.

Sitting in the bar of the South Sea Hotel where we are staying in their motel block behind the Old Pub.

Beautiful position, garden bar outside in front just across the road from the beach.

Waiting for our dinner in the restaurant of the hotel with same view.

Seafood Chowder for dinner tonight. Very thick and filling. mainly full of their mussels and big chunks of fish probably Blue Cod.

At this stage it looks like the weather is wet tomorrow so not sure what we will do as we don’t leave the Island until the 8.00am boat on Sunday morning.

Bluff — to — Oban, Stewart Island, 6th November, 2025

HAPPY BIRTHDAY ADAM A

Hope you had a great Day Adam.

🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈 

Arrived down at the wharf for our 9.45am departure for Stewart Island. Tide is out so just see top of our boat hiding behind the wharf.

This is how they get all the luggage over to the island. When you check in you put your luggage in these big grey bins. Then they cover them with blue waterproof covers before lowering the bins down onto the stern’s open deck. 

This shows the storage of the luggage better.

The folded crane that lifts the luggage onto the back of the boat is a permanent fixture.

On our way just leaving  Bluff heads

Bluff behind us

It’s only 10.00am and so warm. No jacket out on the ocean down here, amazing.

Nice and calm in the middle of the Foveaux Straight.

Getting near the island. Can’t get out on the bow for photos so had to take them through the dirty front window.

Good calm crossing 🤞 for the return trip.

Just round the corner is Halfmoon  Bay where we get off.

Taken through the front window Halfmoon Bay where we are staying behind the old South Sea Hotel. The hotel built a row of motel units behind the old building around the year 2000

On the right passing a couple of nice sheltered bays.

Coming into the wharf.

Nearly there, the sun was out to greet us. It was 6 knots when we started the crossing this morning. Then the wind changed and it went like class, then the wind got up a bit but still quite calm.

I think we all know this fellow coming off the boat.

The Crain is working hard taking off the luggage.

Off the boat going in to collect our luggage. The boat was full of a school party of around 10yr olds. Noisy just our luck. We found out they are on our boat coming back. Without them on board there would have only been about 15 adults on the boat. That would have been peaceful. Took us a long time to find the bin our luggage was in. It got mixed up with the kids bins. Finally we found it and walked about 200 metres to our Hotel.

Looking over to our hotel, our boat in front. Not far to walk. Don’t need a Uber here.

Halfmoon Bay where our hotel is.

Looking over to the wharf from the beach.

South Seas Hotel our studio units are around at the back of the hotel.

Beach across the road from the hotel.

Waiting for our room to be ready outside the front of  the hotel.

Looking over the bay from the hotel.

Further along the bay.

Our motel room. It’s OK but one of these places that has maintenance issue . Doesn’t have that well cared for feeling.

Outside the units. We are tucked away last unit on the  left behind the lovely Rhododendron. Nobody walks past us.

We look out over the Rhododendron.

Had a visitor loving the flax bush just beside the Rhododendron just outside our ranchslider. Am sure it is an NZ native Kaka

Local fish and chip shop, very popular. Apart from the hotel this place and one more little eating place has a different meal each night. Tonight’s menu was pizza.

Boats moored on one side of the bay.

It turned out a sunny afternoon after a couple of hours with showers on and off over the middle of the day. Haven’t done much today just wandering around the bay. Tomorrow we have a bus tour booked at 11.00am but weather says on TV it’s raining all day. Yesterday they said that it wasn’t coming in until tomorrow. We couldn’t do it today as we had to wait for our room to be ready. Very strong winds got up to about 42knots in the afternoon but still very warm. It was going to get up to 26 degrees today. We hear it’s been very hot in Auckland today.