IS ULVA ISLAND WORTH IT? A 5KM WALK

One of the ‘must do’ activities when visiting Stewart Island is to head over to Ulva Island for a wander of the island, with the plan to see some birds.

But is it worth visiting Ulva Island?

In short…yes. I was hesitant as to whether I was going to visit Ulva while on Stewart Island. I’m glad I did!

This post will give you all the details you need to know about Ulva Island.

But first…what birds did we see?

• Tomtit
• Robin
• Weka
• Kaka
• Saddleback
• Kereru
• Yellowhead
• Parakeet
• Tui
• Oystercatcher
• Bellbird

Nope, no kiwis 🙁

Note: Taking good photos of birds is hard, so there’s more scenery photos in this post.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. Details About Walking Ulva Island
2. Ulva Island Walking Map
3. How To Get There
4. My Ulva Island Experience

1. DETAILS ABOUT WALKING ULVA ISLAND

QUICK DETAILS:

• Distance: Upto 5km
• Elevation gain: No more than 200 metres
• Time: 2 to 5 hours

How hard are the Ulva Island Tracks walk?

The walks are easy, with gentle undulations.

What distance is the Ulva Island Track?

This will vary, but I recommend walking all of the trails on the island as they only total to ~5km.

What is the elevation gain of walks on Ulva Island?

Over the 4.81km on my watch, there was a total of 182 metres of elevation gain. You’re never more than 50 metres above sea level so it’s undulating terrain.

How long does it take to hike around Ulva Island?

We spent about 2 hours 30 minutes on the island. Initially we thought that was more than enough, but it turns out we walked a lot slower than expected as we wanted to spot birds…then we would hang out watching birds we saw. Then there was the beach time…which would have been longer if the weather was nicer.

In short, I’d say aim for 3 hours on the island. We didn’t have more than a few minutes left before the boat was back to pick us up…and we knew we had to keep moving to ensure we made it in time.

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2. ULVA ISLAND TRACKS MAP

The below map is from topomap.co.nz…click the image will open it in a new world.

This is the best topo map app.

While you don’t need it for Ulva Island, you’ll want it for your New Zealand hiking adventures.

3. HOW TO GET THERE

From Stewart Island it’s a short 5 minute-ish boat ride to Ulva Island. The boats depart from Golden Bay wharf, with a few companies operating.

We took a risk and didn’t make a booking, and didn’t wait long (15 minutes) for a pickup. During the summer, you’ll likely want to make a booking to save you faffing about at the wharf for ages trying to snag a ride.

There’s a few operators who run the boats. We used Rakiura Charters. Your accommodation provider will have all the options.

4. MY ULVA ISLAND EXPERIENCE

After arriving on Stewart Island, it wasn’t long that we’d checked into the backpackers, made some lunch (in the awesome kitchen) and decided we were off to Ulva Island. We decided to risk it and walk down to the Golden Bay ferry wharf (15-20 minute walk) without a booking, hoping we’d get the 1.50pm boat we saw scheduled.

That didn’t work out, but we were given the number of Rakiura from Rakiura Charters. He was just on the way back to the wharf when we called and was able to take us straight away.

The boat ride was efficient and took somewhere between 5 and 10 minutes…it was a little choppy, but a lot smoother than the ferry from Bluff to Oban earlier.

Rakiura gave us a quick run down about the island, and asked what time we’d like to be collected. We decided on 2.5 hours. While the weather wasn’t really beach worthy, we decided we’d rather spend more time than less on the island given we had no more plans for the afternoon.

It was less than 30 seconds after we had left the boat in Post Office Bay that we had a tui fly closer than I’ve ever had one fly to me before. That was terrifying, but fun.

After a quick chat, our game plan was:

1. Walk the direct route from the wharf to Boulder Beach
2. Boulder Beach to West End Beach
3. West End Beach to Syndey Cove
4. Sydney Cove to the wharf via Flagstaff Point

It was early into the walk that I realised we weren’t going to cruise through the walk at a decent pace. The island instantly made us slow down…especially after Rakiura had said you need to be quiet for the birds to be potentially be cirous about you.

So we plodded along in quiet (which is tough when the other three in my party are from the US). I’m not going to lie, I felt like a twat for the first 15 minutes or so as we weren’t seeing much despite being so quiet. The hen and chicken fern was fun though!

But then a kereru was hanging out, and that kick started proceedings! From then on, we saw bird consistently. We were there in November and there wasn’t too many others on the island which helped I think.

We got out to Boulder Beach, and it wasn’t the nicest conditions. My partner would love suntanning there if it was warm and sunny. Hopefully it is for you. Next time.

From there we committed to going to West End Beach. It was further than we thought, and the highlights we saw in this section were couple of friendly robins (love them) and the ground loving saddlebacks.

West End Beach was great, and the black oystercatchers were battling the conditions. Again, it’d be great to hang out here on a nicer day.

Then it was a mission to get to Sydney Cove. The highlight on the way was a kaka who we did well to spot.

Sydney Cove was massive, and you get the point now…it’d be great on a sunny day. So it was time for a quick jaunt back to the boat via Flagstaff Point. We saw a weka along this section, always so cheeky.

After sitting down for all of two minutes, Rakiura was there to take us back to the main island. How good.

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I reckon Ulva Island is worth it. The concentration of birds is impressive, birder or not. And the trails are nice, and if you’ve got a nice weather day you could spend 6+ hours there easily I reckon.

Got any questions or comments about Ulva Island? Leave a message below or email jub@churnewzealand.com.

Chur.

p.s. Here’s a map of all the hikes documented on Chur New Zealand. You can click the icon to see brief details, as well as a link to read more about the hike (like this post).