Walking Rakiura Track at the End of the World - New Zealand Saga

So we're about to take the ferry to New Zealand's third biggest island, the lesser known Stewart Island or Rakiota. Yeah. Cool to some voiceover. I'm Oscar, this is Cornelia, and this is Gimli. Our van is going to take us from north to south and back again. We've made it all the way to Stewart Island, which is the third largest island in New Zealand, where we're going to do the first part of the Rakiota track. We're also stopping by Yulva Island, a bird sanctuary where all the predators have been removed, and there are a lot of rare birds there. So come along on our New Zealand saga. Today is really cold. If you ever plan to go to the very southern parts of the island, be aware that the weather can change and it can be cold. We stayed at a lodge where we could also park our car, and the hostess there told us that last year they had three days of summer. And I don't think it's all jokes. We're hoping that our gamble is going to pay off because from the weather report, it's going to be a lot warmer. So we're hoping that we're going to get good weather on our hike. We made our way to Yulva Island, which is a water taxi way away, like five to ten minutes by boat from Stewart Island. And it's fairly untouched, so there are a lot of wild animals, especially birds, or I guess only birds in seal islands. Kiwis are nocturnal animals, but if there's one place that you can see one during daytime, it's probably here. Don't jinx it. I mean it. Apparently, there's another bird that's easily mistaken for a kiwi called a waka. Yeah. So we might see one of those instead. Yeah. We have to walk very slowly, which we're not really good at, so we have to pace ourselves. Yeah, both me and Cornelia have a fairly high walking speed if we don't think about it, so we're gonna move around slowly on the island here and hope to not scare away any birds. It's gonna be three quiet hours. So we've seen the brown keeper. I think we saw the tomtote, but I don't think we got a picture of it. We've seen the yellow head. I think we might have seen the bellbird. We've seen the South Island Saddleback and the kaka. And the green parrot. Yeah, the New Zealand parakeet, but only the redhead, not the blonde. That one we saw. Yeah, we saw the oyster catcher. We didn't see the waka. A little bit. Update, we did see a waka. And then we saw the tui. Yeah, not the little green one and not the owl. No, we haven't seen the rifleman or the morpug. But the pig pigeon we saw, and that was so cool. The New Zealand wood pigeon. It was so big. It was gigantic. It was so big. And of course, the kiwi is nocturnal, so we didn't expect to see it. It would have been cool. It would have been cool to see it in daylight. We're on our way to the first part of Rakiura Great Walk. And we've read reviews online and talked to some people who said that the rest of the track is just a mud fest. I also just don't want to walk in mud for six hours there. No. Let's do the beach part and actually enjoy it. Yeah, and let's hope for good weather tomorrow as well, because it's shifting very fast here. Mom is not answering. So it's about an hour walk from Oban, or where the ferry arrives, to where the trail actually starts. So we have about an hour walk ahead of us. And then the track itself is about four hours, three to four hours. There wasn't any room in the hut, so we booked a campsite. We have brought all the layers, because it gets pretty chilly. Yeah, even though the sun is shining today, it's not going to be warmer than like 12 degrees or something. So it's pretty chilly in the wind. We made it to the start of the track. Just four more hours to go. So neither of us remembered that we don't really have all of the camping equipment that we had in Canada, like plates. So we're eating like this today. It works fine. Oh lord, the soundbites are eating us up. We got a little bit of a late start today, so we have to rush. Well, not rush, but we can't take a calm tramp back to Obu for the ferry. But we did see a kiwi tonight. We got woken up by the sound of it at around three in the morning, and we went out to the beach and a bit along the track, but couldn't hear anything or find it. So as Cornelia went to bed, I decided to take a trip around the campground, because it would be typical for it to be just 20 meters away from where we actually slept, and we'd been out and about in the forest. And on the other side of the cooking hut, I heard something in the forest, and I managed to find it, and I could wake Cornelia up, our go-patcher, and we saw it because it hadn't moved when we got back. And it was like 20 meters away from where we slept. That's so cute! Well, now let's get a move on before we get eaten to death. We're taking a taxi home. We haven't decided that yet. Thank you so, so much for making it through the entire video. Don't forget to like, subscribe, and enjoy the pictures here at the end, and we'll see you next time.