Ulva Island - Te Wharawhara Marine Reserve

**Ulva Island
by Celia Walker
**

With kaka brawling in the treetops, tui speed-dating, the strange squeaky wheelbarrow call of the tieke/saddleback, and magical bellbirds all around, the experience of walking around the pest-free sanctuary of Ulva Island/Te Wharawhara can be a pretty noisy one, but in the best possible way. Although you will only hear the booming of kakapo in closed island sanctuaries such as Whenua Hou that lies even further south, the rare experience of abundant birdlife alongside mature forest makes this pretty special for a publicly accessible island reserve.

For a visit that has the sole purpose of immersion in nature it seems fairly apt that ferry tickets are handwritten on the large round leaves of puwharetaiko, or muttonbird shrub, smaller ones for the children of course (apparently these are also acceptable as postcards). We were still a little green around the edges from the Foveaux Strait ferry crossing (we won’t be doing that again in a hurry…), but fortunately the trip is quick from Golden Bay at the southern end of the Oban township to Ulva, and offers worthy vistas of islands and inlets disappearing into the distance.

The walking tracks take you from deep forest out to tiny beaches scattered with seaweed and inhabited by foraging weka – and even with a cruise ship offloading multitudes into Oban, wildly disproportionate to the size of the tiny township, those visiting Ulva seemed to disperse into the bush very quickly. Ulva also contains some interesting heritage from much earlier visitors, with 200 year-old totara trees bearing traces of seasonal visits from Ngai Tahu Maori, who stripped bark from their trunks for use in making storage baskets for muttonbird/titi.

The island was also the first post office in the area, and the first postmaster’s homestead still remains, along with remnants of his garden and exotic plantings. As with any of the beaches, rocky outcrops and inlets around Rakiura, the water is breathtakingly clear, the ferry incursions don’t seem to disturb the abundant marine life. We didn’t get to spot any visiting seals, but I don’t think their frequent presence was just a marketing myth. The same goes for the resident population, whose daytime excursions (unlike their nocturnal northern counterparts) mean they are quite frequently spotted along the walking tracks of the island. We were happy enough with our encounters with the tame and insatiably curious weka, and were on first name terms with a couple of them by the time we reluctantly left.

PATERSON INLET CRUISE INCLUDING ULVA ISLAND FROM STEWART ISLANDULVA ISLAND EXPLORER FROM STEWART ISLAND

** **Ulva Island was named New Zealand's first scenic reserve, in 1922, it is now pest and predator free, and is a Marine Reserve.

For maps of short walks, see the DOC website. If you are curious about the little dot of a rock off the coast of Ulva Island, it is named 'Manawahei Nugget' and is known for great white shark sightings and was a scallop gathering ground in the past.

Image Credits: Celia Walker