island hopping

We got a lazy start this morning, sleeping in for a bit and then making a nice omelet for breakfast. While we were eating, we started talking to a British pensioner nicknamed Slideshow Kev who was a scientist-turned-sounds-and-lights-man currently biking around the South Island(s) of New Zealand. He was really entertaining – when he returns to England, he plans to take a Punch-N-Judy-style puppet show of his own creation to the road, traveling around England in a caravan doing educational shows for children with other graduates of the puppetry diploma program he recently completed.

After breakfast, we got tickets for a cruise to Ulva Island, a predator- and pest-free native wildlife sanctuary near the main island. Again, we just barely made it onto the ship – in this case because we’d been holding out for the glass-bottom boat adventure which was cancelled for the 3rd day in a row due to poor visibility. The island was great – nice views and very wild, but we got stuck in a really slow group with a slow-speaking interpreter and there wasn’t much of a chance to wander off to entertain ourselves. We did see a couple of the chicken-like wekas, and a few Stewart Island robins, which are really curious and will fly right over if you scratch a spot on the ground.

Before leaving the island, we arranged a day trip for tomorrow to Doubtful Sound, the slightly-less-accessible version of Milford. We’d hoped to do an overnight, but everyone was booked – we don’t like planning ahead! As we were on our way to catch the ferry back, we ran into Slideshow Kev again and all went to the pub to have a pint and swap more travel tales.

The ferry arrived back in Bluff just as all the food places were closing down, but we knew we’d be getting to our campsite late so we hunted around and found one takeway that was still open. We ordered a dozen of the famed Bluff oysters – fried, because we’re not too brave – and they were absolutely delicious. We also had shark bites and a paua fritter, and of course a scoop of chips. I definitely like the way the paua shells look a lot more than how their meat tastes!

Campsite arrival was especially late tonight, and we weren’t even really sure if we were in an actual site but were too tired from the drive to really care.