Features

North Arm Fish Freezer, Port Pegasus,
Rakiura National Park

From the South Island, Stewart Island/Rakiura can be seen on most days as a mysterious jagged, dark blue lump on the horizon. When the weather drives in from the Southern Ocean the island disappears behind low cloud and grey sheets of cold rain. On clear summer days the island seems very close and shines an inviting blue-green, topped by rocky mountain peaks.

Geography

To the north of Stewart Island/Rakiura is the often stormy Foveaux Strait and the South Island. To the east, west and south lies endless tracts of unforgiving Southern Ocean.

Sea-pounded cliffs and sandy beaches make up the western coast of the island while on the eastern side there are three sheltered inlets. Paterson Inlet, with a 160 km shoreline, is the largest. The other two are Port Adventure and Port Pegasus. From the head of Paterson Inlet the Freshwater Valley extends westwards dividing the northern rangelands and the high country to the south.

The highest peak is in the north, Mt Anglem/Hananui at 980 metres. On the western side, Mason Bay's sprawling, soaring dunes form another impressive landform and towards the centre of the island are the expansive Freshwater wetlands. The jagged skyline of the Ruggedy Mountains of the north-west corner contrast with the smooth outline of Mt. Anglem with its twin lakes, a hint of a glacial past. The rivers and streams run brown with forest tannin.

An island with many names

Rakiura is the Māori name for Stewart Island. It is translated as 'The Land of Glowing Skies' and probably refers as much to the night-time displays of Aurora Australis, the Southern Lights, as to the sunsets.

The island has had at least two other Māori names. Te Puka a te Waka a Maui, 'The Anchor of Maui's Canoe', a reference to the tradition of Maui's discovery of New Zealand and his use of the South Island as a canoe or platform by which he fished up the North Island. Stewart Island anchored his canoe. The island was also known in early times as Motunui or Large Island. The island is about 75 km long and up to 45 km wide.

Flora

Track from Masons Bay to Freshwater
Hut, Rakiura Southern Circuit

The northern half of Stewart Island/Rakiura is covered by podocarp and hardwood forest, featuring New Zealand's southernmost tall trees - rimu, kahikatea and tōtara. The remaining areas of the island feature shrubland or low forest, grassland, wetland, alpine herbfield/ cushionfield, and coastal or duneland communities.

Fauna

Stewart Island/Rakiura robin,
Freshwater Flats

Native birds that may be seen during these walks include parakeet/kākāriki, native wood pigeon/kererū, tūī, bellbird/korimako, tomtit/miromiro, weka, robin/kakaruai, and fernbird/mātā, as well as a significant population of South Island kākā.

The island's kiwi population is also special. Known now as southern tokoeka, the Stewart Island/Rakiura kiwi behave rather differently to kiwi in other parts of New Zealand. They maintain family groups, for example, and some birds feed during daylight hours. Stewart Island/Rakiura offers perhaps the best opportunity anywhere in New Zealand for viewing kiwi in the wild.

The island was the final stronghold for the flightless, nocturnal parrot/kākāpō, which had all but disappeared from the mainland under pressure from stoats and other predators leaving less than a hundred birds in Fiordland and Stewart Island/Rakiura. The last 60 or so birds were relocated to nearby Whenua Hou or Codfish Island which is now a nature reserve supporting other endangered species. This pest-free island is excluded from the park, as is all Māori land, freehold land and the foreshore.

White-tailed and red deer, cats, and rats introduced in the early 1900s, together with possums, have had an impact on the forest, shrublands, herbfields and native fauna.

The people

People here are a little less hurried, much more friendly and a great deal more self-reliant than people in most other places. The little community of 400 or so permanent residents in the only settlement, Oban in Halfmoon Bay has a school, a quaint hotel, two small churches overlooking the harbour, good shops for basic necessities, a DOC visitor centre and a number of tourist services. The community centre houses a library and an indoor sports stadium. Internet facilities are available at the library and the South Sea Hotel.

Many residents are direct descendants of the whalers and early Rakiura Māori, with combined family histories reaching back almost 200 years. Some of the houses built by the early Norwegian whalers are still lived in today, their distinctive alpine architecture somehow no longer out of place in the Roaring Forties of the Southern Ocean.

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