Stewart Island is New Zealand’s little known southern-most island and the closest southern landmass you can travel to be close to Antarctica besides the lower southern part of South America. Stewart Island can be accessed via a short fixed wing flight from the larger South Island town of Invercargill or a longer, but more economical ferry ride from Bluff.
View Larger Map of Stewart Island Relative to South America & New Antarctica
Team Landing on Stewart Island
Furhana Ahmad from Stewart Island’s Ruggedy Range guided tours
The primary goal of our Tourism NZ/Canon Video/Photo crew was to spot an elusive Kiwi bird with the assistance of Furhana Ahmad from Stewart Island’s Ruggedy Range guided tours and record the event, however only 2 of our crew saw a Kiwi and it was after midnight while walking outside so there was barely enough time to move out of the way while it ran down a path and disappeared into vegetation.
Wind Swept Beach Panorama
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We were not dismayed by the lack of kiwi sightings as Stewart Island offered plenty of opportunities for outdoor adventure lovers to admire including wind swept beaches with waving grass on dunes that fascinated our resident TV travel journalist Jules Lund, bush walks through a variety of vegetation and sand dunes and a sense of being far away from the noise and maddening crowds of city life.
This is the first time I visited this blog and I’m enjoying it!
Lovely pics!
Thanks for sharing!1
My brother visited his friend there last summer, and raved about the times they had. Said the wildlife birds were amazing. Plans to go back with the family!!
I have been to Auckland, Christ Church and never to the above place. During my travel there i have seen pictures of the kiwi but not a live one.
nice reports and pics!
steward island is one of the few places i havent visited while i was in NZ (5months), and i think i missed out 🙁
on the other side of NZ are some really nice spots too, i wrote a little trip report on the far north and the 90 mile beach at
http://beachspotonline.com/90-mile-beach/ in case ur interested 🙂