Stewart Island

This video is from our two day trip to Stewart Island. Darren and I entered a drawing and won two ferry tickets to Stewart Island which is off the southern coast of New Zealand. Only four hundred people live on the island and most of the island is national park land. There aren't many roads, but the island is amazing for backpacking so we hiked along the eastern coast of the island and stayed in a backpacking hut that night and then hiked back to town the next morning. The hike was so beautiful and there were very hikers on the trail. The trail hugged the coastline so we had beautiful scenery and remote beaches that are only accessible by hiking trails so we stopped at some of these pristine beaches and had the entire beach to ourselves to relax and find cool shells. The second day of our trip we rented kayaks and kayaked out to Ulva Island which is a smaller island off of Stewart Island. All rodents have been removed from the island so the bird life there flourishes and we were entertained by a continuous choir of various birds during our hiking around the island. One of our favorite birds to watch and listen to was the Tui bird which is the bird in the video above.