Kiwis flock to Stewart Island
‘‘I don’t know if all the team of five million has been here yet but sometimes it feels like it.’’
Stewart Island’s South Sea Hotel owner Helen Cave is one of several businesspeople who have confirmed the wave of Kiwi tourists crossing Foveaux Strait continues unabated.
Cave said the South Sea Hotel was very busy in January last year with international tourists – and it has been just as busy in January this year without them.
‘‘We are pretty heavily booked. It’s been getting busier over the years but there’s more New Zealand tourists coming now, of course,’’ Cave said.
Stewart Island Backpackers comanager Michaela Joy said – despite no international tourists – Stewart Island’s busy season started about three months early last year, in September, and it wasn’t quietening down.
‘‘Since about September most of the island has been pretty full most nights. And we are already getting lots of bookings for the April school holidays and on random dates in April, which is quite unusual.’’
She had been ‘‘terrified’’ at the hostel’s business prospects when Covid lockdown was enforced 10 months ago.
‘‘We didn’t know if we would ever get business again, but it’s been the complete opposite – packed.
‘‘Lots of New Zealanders are really keen to get out of their cities.’’
The island was getting busier every year but no-one was taking it for granted, given the uncertainty of Covid-19, she said.
On a windy and overcast afternoon yesterday, plenty of Aucklanders were waiting to brave the ferry ride across the Foveaux Strait.
Nicki Masefield and Ian McAlpine were supposed to go to San Francisco in May. Instead, they are taking a month-long trip around the country. Stewart Island was on their bucket list.
‘‘Covid has forced us to tick some of this stuff off. It’s so easy to just fly out of Auckland and go to Australia, the islands or the [United] States, but travelling around your own backyard is quite something,’’ Masefield said.
Sitting across the terminal, Emma-Jane Hetherington’s family had parked their campervan and 14-year-old Jasper was eagerly awaiting his seafood dinner on Stewart Island.
Along with 11-year-old Charlotte and dad Tim, they started planning a two-week southernloop trip at the end of 2020.
‘‘We thought that this is our chance to do this trip. Always talked about it, now’s the time,’’ Hetherington said.
She and the kids had never been further south than Queenstown. They were in a campervan, and said the roads were empty.
‘‘There’s no-one out there, it’s amazing. It’s really scary and sad, but on the other hand it’s amazing to experience it as empty as it is.
‘‘We feel pretty good about spending our money down here,’’ Hetherington said.
Real Journeys general manager Paul Norris confirmed there had been a ‘‘big lift’’ in domestic visitors catching its Bluff-Stewart Island ferries in recent months.
Overall, ferry passenger numbers had been similar to last year but the ‘‘clear difference’’ was domestic tourists had almost completely replaced international tourists, which was not the case in other tourism hotspots, Norris said.
New Zealanders were staying longer at Stewart Island and doing more activities, with visitor numbers to Ulva Island, at Stewart Island, up 40 per cent this summer, he said.
Department of Conservation figures show bookings on the Ra¯ kiura Track in 2020 were up 26 per cent compared to the previous year, to 2785.
Southland District Council’s Stewart Island resident, councillor Bruce Ford, said the direct Auckland to Invercargill flights had helped boost the island’s domestic tourism numbers. ‘‘We are pretty comfortable if all these people keep coming along.’’