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Second day on Stewart Island, and today i went on the Twinkle Dark Sky tour which was absolutely fantastic and a lot better than I thought it was going to be. The next several hours were spent with a very enthusiastic guide relaxing in chairs staring up at the stars with binoculars.

Today is the day I actually get to Stewart Island; and the weather made for an exciting ferry trip across. Robin and I loved it, Julianne not so much.

I am so excited to be finally getting away to Stewart Island. I had planned this trip for October 2021 for my fiftieth birthday, but due to Covid-19 lockdowns it had to be postponed. But now in last week of April 2022, seven months later the Stewart Island trip & tramp is back on!

Saturday March the 12th 12/03/2022

Today was a very special amazing day as I got close up and personal with three kiwi chicks!

The day was spent at Rotorua Island, a small island east of Waiheke Island. I e-mailed them several weeks ago to see if I could land on the island by helicopter and they said yes. Also my father’s birthday is this month, so he came along and it was great to spend the day with my Dad, share a helicopter flight with him and see rare kiwi chicks.

Our final day on Tiri, and the first day the ferry has been able to get to the island.

We have been so lucky to have one of Aotearoa ‘s premier bird life sanctuary’s to ourselves for five whole wonderful days, but like most good things it must come to an end.

I woke up super early at 5.30am as I was keen to see if I could find a good place to experience the dawn chorus after yesterday’s failed attempt. Today I had a new plan, I would head down to where the nectar feeder is located near the end of the wattle track. My theory is that the bellbird’s and hihi’s which use the feeder during the day should be around as the sun comes up.

Today turned out to be a nice day spent with Luke as Julianne has a large cut on her foot and Robin still had a sore foot as well. It also turns out that ferry that which was supposed to come today is not arriving due to high wind gusts which meant that Luke and I basically had all rare birds and the island to ourselves while Julianne and Robin had the bunkhouse to themselves. This being the third day with Tiri just for ourselves and four others who we never see.

It’s a wonderful feeling to wake up on Tiritiri Matangi, go outside and to hear the dawn chorus including the haunting kokako’s and tui’s while having breakfast.

Like last time we stayed at Tiri, I have arranged for the boys to the daily clean and water refill the bird troughs on the island which located around the lighthouse and along the wattle track.

For this summer holiday we are headed out to Tiritiri Matangi, for a whole five days! The first day including seeing rare takake and tuatara.

I have always wanted to visit Wingpan, the home of the NZ falcan , and then Star the came and landed right beside my hand and started pecking at it! I put my arm down to see what would happen, and what I so privileged as this young NZ Falcon then climbed up onto my arm – I was a tad nervous as I didn’t any protection on but she was actually super gentle on my arm with those super sharp talons of hers.

This is the final day of our five day tramp and is another easy four hour walk with a gentle downhill to the car, but like yesterday the first 75% of the tramp involved over 100 stream crossings!

And a relaxing in a natural hot water spa! At the Waikite Valley Spa in Rotorua

A day with over 100 stream crossings and a great surprise, copies from Auckland University Tramping Club annual magazines ‘1997’ and ‘1998 & 1999 combined’ which are the years that I happened to have been in the Auckland Uni tramping club. There were several tramping reports which mentioned me and one large photo of a tramp I did in Taranaki with the club back in the late 1990’s. It was so cool to reminisce and think back to those early tramping days while in the middle of a tramp!

After yesterday was spent relaxing, today is our third day of tramping. At 6-30am everyone was up early at the Waikaremoana Holiday Park, with Julianne and I working to get everything ready, eating breakfast and packing the last things for the tramp while Robin stayed in his sleeping bag waking up and having his breakfast. Robin is not used to these early starts

Today is a day of rest!

Tired Robin after the last two days of tramping

After two day’s of walking, today is a rest day before beginning the next three days of tramping in the Whirinaki Te Pua-a-Tāne Conservation Park.

On this second day of the tramp there were two options for the walk back out to Lake Waikaremoana from Sandy Bay hut.

Option one is a four hour walk same as yesterday just in the opposite direction and option two is a longer seven hour walk which stretches further out towards a much smaller Lake Ruapani and then curves back to the road.

Today is the first day of our five day tramp. Lake Waikareiti is a smaller lake just north of the much larger Lake Waikaremoana and its well known Great Walk. It was only a short one minute drive from the holiday park camp ground to the start of the Lake Waikareiti tramp. The first section of the walk was like a highway with a large clear track heading north with a gentle up-hill climb over 3.3 kilometers towards the shores of Lake Waikareiti.

Julianne, Robin and I are heading away for a five day tramp for which will be Robin’s only second tramp.

We are heading to the Urewera’s where the Lake Waikaremoana Great Walk is located. but there are a number of other walks in the same forest but without the without all the busy bustle of the a Great Walk and also a lot cheaper which we are heading to.

Today has become one of the most spiritual and amazing days of my entire life, I got to experience something that probably no-one else in the world has experienced for over a hundred of years; you will simply not believe what has happened today - I could see this huge waka canoe heading out to us, it was the Ngāpuhi waka tane (war canoe) at Waitangi with over 80 people on board.

Today is a day all about Tuia 250 celebrating the dual heritage of European and Polynesian ships who traveled over the oceans to New Zealand; 3 tall ships (Endevour, Spirt of NZ and the Tucker Thompon) and 3 waka including the Fa’afaite who navigated from Tahiti to New Zealand using only the stars.

So in another fantastic example of living history which I got to experience; I got behind one of the spokes of the capstan and started walking in circles to pull in the anchor.