~ Escaping to an island from an island

Greetings from the southernmost reach of civilization! Tom has a theory that Stewart Island is the last place you can find year-round residents on this longitude line (or at least till you get to the South Pole!). Speaking of which, here's a theoretical question for you. If you're on Antarctica and you want to give directions to someone so they can reach you, how do you do that? North is "toward the nearest coast", south is "toward the center", and east and west go in circles!

We're having fun just chilling here. There are about 3 cafes and 400 year-round residents here. You can't take your car on the ferry; not that you'd need it. All you need to do is blink while you're walking and you'll miss the town! Oh - and that's all there is. The roads go a bit out from here, but there isn't another town, so there's no where else that they go. People do week+ tracks around here, but walking tracks are all you'll find on the rest of the island.

We've heard and seen some neat birds here - Patrick's gone off today to another, SMALLER island, Ulva Island, which is a bird sanctuary (all the introduced predators that have threatened the native species in the main islands have been eliminated from there). I'm guessing he'll have plenty to share when he gets back. We're all hoping to see a kiwi bird in the wild, but the odds of that are pretty slim. We'll see!

We're staying in a fairly interesting hotel; it began operating in the 1880's, burned and was rebuilt in the 1920's, and it feels like it hasn't changed much since then (toilets & showers are separate from the rooms!). The only pub in town is located on the first floor. It definitely gives you the sense of stepping back in time.

We'll probably begin making our way up to the NW corner of the South Island. Expect news of a bungee jump in Queenstown!

(oh, and I've finally got a few of my pictures uploaded to Flickr, so click on the New Zealand set here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ladybugblue/.