Cold and Rainy once more...this time, in Stewart!

Invercargill likes to try to live up to it's Scottish heritage. I say this because last night's cold weather and windy ways did not subside come morning. In fact, it was quite cold all night, and the plush blanket provided by our airbnb hosts was not quite enough to warm my lizard blood. It was one of those cold mornings where waking up and getting out of bed and moving made more sense than trying to get the bed to warm up. (This was before I found out the bed has a heating pad? element? blanket? At least I have my looks? Cause ya girl is dumb.) And the weather and our plans made us bundle in our best cold weather gear which....for me is pretty weak and for Sarah...she actually seemed pretty perfectly equipped. For what were our plans?

Time to discover New Zealand's *third* island, Stewart Island! It's small, and South of everything, and the next landmass past it is Antarctica. (Okay, I exaggerate a little. There are at least three other islands between Stewart and Antarctica. Campbell Island, Auckland Islands, and Macquarie island) But it is New Zealand's Southernmost residential island. It's got a small town in the wharf, and is a popular place to stay. It has a lot of birds native to New Zealand, and one of the only Kiwi birds that is active in the daytime! (We were not so lucky to see them.) We drove to a different small town outside of Invercargill, to a place called Bluff. The drive there, the clouds were dark, the rain was....not pelting, but definitely coming down, and the wind was gusting. We could see blue skies in the distance, and we hoped that the wind would move the storm on, but as we got to the Ferry, we had a small break from the rain.....but when I had to put the parking pass onto the car's dash, it started coming down again. It seemed like that was just going to be our day - cold, windy, and periodic rain. But that's okay! Complain a little, but continue on. Except I forgot that bad weather also means bad seas. You can get to Stewart Island by plane. But most people take the ferry. We took the ferry. And the seas would be damned before they let us cross easily. The ride there was rough - not so bad as the Drake passage, but it was very bumpy, and there were several times it felt like a roller coaster. A few sorry souls felt it bad, and got to make use of of the white paper bags. luckily, the trip was only about an hour, so it was brief at least. I tried to take pictures from inside the boat, but the window was either covered in water or just doing some weird warp thing. I still tried. It kept me thinking of the pictures as opposed to the girl in my row (stranger) who was filling the bag up. And I know she wasn't the only one. In fact, it was kinda bad enough that the boat went from quiet to a party with how loud they suddenly cranked the music. But still, it was over relatively quickly, and we made it to Stewart Island - right as it was starting to rain again! So we popped into a store, saw they were selling wool beanies, immediately bought some because we were colder than we thought we'd be and the wind was not helping and then we had lunch to wait for the weather some more - ate in a cute place called "The Snuggery" which had some authentic seventy vibes and *amazing* food and super rich and delicious hot chocolate. And by the time we were done eating, the rain had stopped once more, so we headed off. We stopped at a jade carving studio where the owner and us chatted about the weather, and then he said that Stewart Island in the Winter can get to -48C? I must have misheard him though because that's not what google says? But what I do believe is when he said they get hail, sleet, and slush. Like, yeah. It's cold as heck *right now* and raining, I can absolutely believe you'd get hail from this. But then we went to one of the walks on Stewart Island - we had to catch the return ferry at 3:30, so we didn't have all the time in the world, (Jade guy also said we should have planned to stay for 5 days to see the whole island. I mean, if we could spend 5 days in all the places, that'd be awesome but what can you do?) so we just got to do the one short one. BUT it was full of birds! We saw Tuis, and New Zealand Pigeons, and Fantails, and some greenboys. We really embraced the birder in ourselves on the walk and took our time trying to hear for calls and spot them in the brush. Sometimes they were RIGHT there for the briefest of moments, and then. GONE. Then we walked to this placed called Observation Rock that overlooked one of the bays of the island, and at this point, we'd been having great weather again. It was sunny, and the wind and rain had died down. We even shed some layers! It was kinda short lived as we saw that clouds were moving in once more (thanks Observation rock! such a great vantage point) We went back to the main area by the ferry and sought shelter in a store again, but this time the attendant told us that he sometimes sees penguins right out there (and then he pointed by the docks where we were going to go). The rain died again, went back outside, and the last few minutes we meandered up and down the beach before we had to prepare to board the ferry back. I DID see a penguin by the way! Right where the attendant had said! I pointed it out to some German grls, and they shared it with their group. We watched it disappear into the ocean, and not long after, we were boarding the ferry for the return trip. It seemed a bit better now that the wind had died, and I even saw a sea lion? I think? porpoiseing through the waves. Pointed it out to the german group again and it's always just so great to see everyone perk up when there's a sighting like that. And no one got sick this time! Much better return trip. When we were back on the mainland.....island....we went back to Invercargill for some dinner at The Taproom. We had a flight of local New Zealand beer, and dinner, and I stg, the best chocolate cake I've ever had. It was better than Wright's.