Our lively trip started by driving down to Bluff to catch a ferry to Stewart Island. On the way to the bottom of South Island, we got to stop at an animal park with a playground where we ate our lunch. An hour later, we hopped off the vans to shop at K-mart, which was very exciting as the one in Dunedin has been gone for a while.

We were on the Ferry to the island by 5:15pm, where it was raining on arrival. There were 22 of us including the teachers and we hurried off to the campsite to pitch our tents for the night. It was raining quite a lot, so the inside of our tents had gotten drenched while we were setting them up.

The next 3 days were spent walking 40km in total. Port William Hut provided beautiful views with 4 white tail deer grazing close to the hut. The next day included some really muddy parts of the track, so that mostly everyone was wrapped in mud up to their knees!

North Arm Hut was a welcome relief. We were educated and entertained by a new DOC ranger completing his first night.

On the final night we went kiwi spotting. Here is the message we left in the kiwi spotting book at the Back Packers.

11 Otago Girls’ High School Students plus 3 staff walk up to the rugby field in expectation of spoting a Kiwi. We walked up to the field and sat a few metres away from the bushes with our red lights on, piercing through the dark night. We sat waiting for a Kiwi to appear for ¾ hour. We stood up in misery and defeat, heading home. That’s when we see several searchers, hearing the crackling of the kiwi in the bushes, we join them and wait. The anticipation was building THEN a kiwi burst out of the undergrowth. We stood in awe as the bird continued to search for grubs. Only 1 metre stood between us and the kiwi. Time froze as 20 minutes slipped by and then we snuck away to leave the Kiwi in peace.

It was a super cool experience and it was really fun spending lots of time with new friends and taking lots of photos of our beautiful country.