Strait across: the Catlins and Stewart Island

BY GERARD HINDMARSH

I will never forget the sight; hundreds of thousands of titi, sooty shearwaters, flying in from feeding out at sea.

One  tight V-formation after another  that went on for a full hour. At  Nugget Point Lighthouse, I just  stood with a gaping mouth,  watching them, as did the handful  of other tourists there late that  afternoon.

The Catlins is a favourite with many "Southerners", but little more than a curious "must go there one day" name for most other New Zealanders.

Early European settlers told how local Maori used to come to catch the eels "ascending like a train, all intertwined with each other" at the three-tiered 20-metre- high Purakaunui Falls.

A few kilometres further down towards the coast is the abandoned railway station of Maclennan. Surrounded by spent vehicles, it resembles a car wrecker's yard. This obscure branch line from Balclutha was hand-hewn out of rugged terrain between 1910 and 1914 to bring timber from the mills up the Tahakopa Valley. Passengers were carried until 1956, but the timber-laden trains persisted until 1971 when the easily won timber ran out.

Keen to explore this hinterland, I set off with a pack on my back. Part of the route of that old railway now forms the last section of a self- guided 23km walking track dubbed the Top Track, which opened for business in 1996 thanks to local eco- tourism operators Fergus and Mary Sutherland, who talked four local farmers into opening up their spectacular coastal properties.

Most memorable is traversing the stunning clifftops between Tahakopa Beach and Pillan's Beach, and the lichen-covered rock faces remarked on by Captain Cook in 1771. An ex-Dunedin City Council trolley bus that got towed to the top of a hill has spectacular views, and now serves as cosy overnight accommodation.

The Catlins shoreline conquered, it's off across Foveaux Strait to explore a very different coast.

The flight from Invercargill to Rakiura/Stewart Island is turbulent, but the pilot gets us down on the short strip of beach at remote Doughboy Bay. Briefly I exchange greetings with the hunters going out on the same plane before making my way to the DOC hut a little back from the beach.

A cave just along the beach has served as shelter for many a traveller, including a Japanese woman named Keiko Agatsuma, who lived here in the late 1970s before being deported as an overstayer. I can see why she fell in love with the place. The dune systems on the west coast beaches of Stewart Island are among the finest in the country.

NEXT day, the walk over Adams Hill to Mason Bay takes me eight hours. The higher I go, the muddier it gets; in places, the black ooze is knee deep. Kiwi flash across the track but prove elusive for even one photograph. Instead, I am treated to the sight of a whitetail deer, which stands and stares at me intently before darting off into the understorey of lush crown ferns. It's another day to Freshwater Landing, where I get a boat down the tannin-stained river back to civilisation.

The houses of Halfmoon Bay (formerly Oban) are sprinkled through the bush and around a crescent of coast by the entrance to Paterson Inlet. Sixty per cent of the 403 residents claim some Maori heritage. On the condom machine in the pub toilets, someone has scrawled "For a refund, stick your baby in here." Hardly required, because not one baby has been born on the island for the last 40 years. Expectant mothers routinely travel to Invercargill to give birth.

The island has no doctor, but offers a St John-staffed free clinic.

It's a beautiful spot, but living is not cheap. The council foisted a sewerage system on the residents eight years ago at a cost of $20,000 per household; the salt air rusts cars and makes WOFs hard to get; and power is 51 cents a unit (four times the national average) thanks to the cost of running the V12 Caterpillar engines that generate it.

Just 20 minutes by fast launch from Halfmoon Bay, 260-hectare Ulva Island was for many years the bushclad home of naturalist Charles Traill (1826-91), who combined the running of a general store with a passion for botany, birdlife and shells. Also postmaster, he would raise a flag to announce the arrival of the mail, and all the settlers and sawmillers from around Paterson Inlet would converge in their boats. Customary from here was the mailing of "postcards" written on the underside of the large and leathery puherataiko leaves.

Ulva Goodwillie's Rakiura heritage goes back six generations on her European side and 25 on her Maori side. She was even named after the island and has been guiding on it for almost a decade. "Every visit is still a joy to me," she says with genuine enthusiasm. We land at Westend Beach, jumping off on to rocks where weka are scouring for food. The bush is lush and full of singing birds, all of which Ulva seems to know personally. "Listen, that's a baby kakariki calling out for food!" she tells us. Living on the island are 250 saddlebacks, the call of which she likens to a car trying to start with a flat battery.

Back in Halfmoon Bay, we find the general store shut for stocktaking, so we retreat to the pub, where the excitement is all about the muttonbird season, due to start the following day. "It brings us families back together like nothing else," one man tells us.

We chat well into the evening, looking out over the bay as the sky turns ruddy orange.

FACT FILE 

The best the Catlins have to  offer is all accessible from the  Southern Scenic Route. From  Dunedin to Invercargill it's 252  kilometres. 
southernscenicroute.co.nz

Top Track: Cost $45, includes  self-guiding booklet. Bring  sleeping bag and food.
catlins-ecotours.co.nz

Bluff to Stewart Island:  Stewart Island Ferry Services  departs Bluff daily at 8am, plus  extra holiday sailings. Otherwise  you can fly from Invercargill  daily with Stewart Island Flights.
stewartislandflights.co.nz
stewartisland.co.nz
catlins.org.nz

- © Fairfax NZ News