As Close To Antarctica As You Can Get Around Here…Stewart Island And Its 12 Miles Of Bike Worthy Roads.

A nice bike ride along the islands 12 miles of road produced a ton of nice pictures like this one above.

The ferry terminal was only a mile from our temporary home so we walked and found it amusing that they labeled their train crossings with these sign instead of lights or gates.

As we waited to board our ferry we watched the onboard crane hoist the luggage onto the boat including this fully loaded touring bike. We wondered why they would not take the packs off and just hand them and the bike over the railing separately? Cool to watch folks using their toys anyway. Spoke to the older chap who it belonged to and he had cycled the length of the two islands and wanted to finish off at the southern tip to complete New Zealand. He was touring with an electric bike for the first time and said he enjoyed it and had no problems charging it.

Leaving the small port town of Bluff. Cool place with nice folks and some really good hiking and scenery. We will return later in the day.

Not a large ferry but for the hour long trip it ran us $110 NZ apiece each way or $70 US. Comfortable ride on this calm day.

We pulled in to the small and only town on the island called Oban. Quaint little fishing village with a nice array of eateries and accommodations.

A short little quarter mile walk to the “Electric Bike Depot” for our e-bike pick ups. Very accommodating place with free use of the helmet and panier for the day. There was even a helmet large enough to fit my immense noggin as they call it around here.

Made it to the other side of the island in a flash with our powered up bikes. Lots of steep and long hills but no issues today. Left the bikes unlocked, at the okay of the shop owner, and headed off for an hour long hike along the coast.

As New Zealand is fastidious about their public bathroom access there was one at the trailhead and that meant a series of pipes to dispose of the waste. There were four sewer caps and each had a different saying on it. We thought this one was appropriate for us.

The trees on the coast have to be extremely tough to survive the windy conditions. I thought I would help one of the trees out here by lending it a hand in its perpetual battle with the wind. The wind was actually no blowing this day and the trees simply stay in this configuration all the time. Cool.

Here are pictures of the “Anchorchain”. The top is on Stewart Island and the bottom in the town of Bluff on the mainland. Read the description in the middle as it is pretty cool.

Laurie is riding in circles waiting for me to take a picture so we can ride to get a good feed on (how they say go out to eat in NZ) back in town. The guy with the dog is also the owner of the bike shop. He was dropping off two bikes (unlocked of course) for two hikers that were finishing the hike around the island that takes three days to complete. Not sure what he charges to drop the bikes off but there are no Ubers here on the island.

Everyone we bumped into, a total of 10 maybe, said this fish and chips place was the best they have ever had. Supposedly the woman inside that owns it won a medal in Tae Kwan Do in one of the Olympics for New Zealand. Had a chat with the elder guy sitting there and almost prompted some fisticuffs with a young family who overheard his comments on the Maori people in politics. The mother of the family was the head instructor on Maori studies at the Christchurch University. Both sides had their points and were actually fairly polite but bluntly straight forward with their thoughts.

The big draw here is the blue cod. We had never had such a wonderful tasting fish anywhere. Similar to Atlantic cod but much creamier in texture. Evidently the blue cod is a deep and cold water fish only found off the coast of the south island in New Zealand and is actually blue in color. Oh my was it good.

The fish and chips actually came wrapped in newspaper like you read about in the old days.

Back on the bikes to check out the other side of the island. Came across this road sign to add to our collection of cool road side signs. Evidently there are quite a few penguins who call Stewart Island home. They feed during the day out at sea and come to sleep on land in the evening. We will not be here in the evening to see them in person, or is that in penguin?

Beautiful views of the different bays with their mini-islands and pleasure/fishing boats all over the island.

Nice park job was done with this boat eh?

Beautiful little cove for a swim if the water temperature was a bit warmer. Some folks were indeed swimming at the beach back in town but….

Beautiful old trees on the island. Some of these were decorated with old anchor buoys.

Back to the wharf to catch our ferry back to Bluff. Not really a large boat is it? There was a National Geographic cruise boat anchored nearby ferrying its 50 passengers back to it from a day of exploring the island. That is our type of cruise, only 50 folks.

On our way back to Bluff after a fantastic day of bike riding, hiking and blue cod!