Gore, Invercargill and Stewart Island

Following the Milford Sound epic journey, the next stop was a small city of Gore where the weather has been much milder, so we enjoyed a good warm night sleep.

From Gore it was a short drive to Invercargill where we were lucky enough to find a couple of second hand bookshops and exchanged our read books for other ones. Second hand bookshops are so handy, we'll have to make sure we know where one is wherever we end up after the trip. After restocking on a good read, we headed to Bluff and got our packs ready for a couple of days on Stewart Island.

The trip there takes about an hour, so not so shabby, but there are very limited accommodation options on the island itself, so if you have a tent (as we did), it makes it a hassle free trip. It turned out that the weather there was much milder than we thought and we hit the jackpot with a day full of sun. In the morning we embarked on a tramp to Ackers lighthouse where pengiuns come out in the evening and during the day they live in their burrows. Of course we didn't see any, but were lucky to spot a friendly Weka passing by. In the evening after a short rest, we embarked on a Horseshoe bay track (both of the tracks took about 2-3 hrs) in small hopes to see some kiwis as they are supposedly plentiful on the island. Well, our sharp eyes didn't spot any, so we will have to make a trip to some kiwi house on our way back north. I suppose, one would have to take at least a few day tramp to the other side of the island to have a better chance of spotting one.

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