Sailing Taurus NZ

At the time of writing this blog our trip to Stewart Island is some eight months in the past. Cara and I had started the process of building a house in 2021 and, despite using a national company that advertises itself as “NZ’s most trusted builder”, the process had gone well and truly pear-shaped. Constant delays and obvious build quality issues led to a communication breakdown. As the house was unfinished and the builders were refusing to do more work we had decided to head away on our trip. Neither of us were working as we were supposed to be travelling, lawyers were involved, and there was nothing that we could do beyond stressing about the lies, incompetence, and double dealing. Our builders were refusing to honour the contract we had signed and essentially told us “if you don’t like it take us to court.” Unfortunately, taking builders to court takes years, costs hundreds of thousands of dollars, and would have prevented us taking possession of our house. Ultimately, we were forced to return to Dunedin to try and sort the mess out. Having been forced to swallow our pride and accept a pretty one-sided agreement, our builders promptly went into liquidation, leaving us to deal with our building ‘insurance’ company, Master Builders, and the liquidators. I can’t adequately describe how bad Master Builders are to deal with, and how corrupt they appear to be as an organisation, suffice to say they cost us months of stress and thousands of dollars. But, enough of that! Stewart Island was so amazing that I have to add some more information and photos here for anyone else thinking of heading that way, and Port Pegasus is the jewel in its crown.

Shipbuilders Cove in the South Arm of Port Pegasus provides access to a track that takes the intrepid walker to one of the local landmarks: Bald Cone. The walk is steep but short and gives incredible views of the surrounding area and amazing rock structures.

It was hot day so I was eager for a refreshing dip in the crystal clear water. My ‘bath’ saved me from having to bare all having a deck shower later on too!

There were other numerous memorable events in the following weeks. Like meeting Gert and Christine, a couple who had lived on the land for years and were now travelling around NZ on a converted trawler. They taught us how to process and cook paua, scollops, and kina. It’s one thing to gather these NZ delicacies, that are crazy expensive in shops, but relatively common in Stewart Island, but another to know how to clean and cook them!

Sealions are another feature of Port Pegasus. These amazing creatures are completely unafraid of humans and whilst often aggressive if approached on land are relaxed and curious in water. The first couple of times sealions approached when we were snorkelling there was a general scramble for the dinghy! We soon learnt not to panic however, and instead learnt to welcome interactions with these gentle giants. They would swim up to us and turn and pirouette in front of us, clearly trying to work out what these weird things were with their yellow fins! Though I have heard they sometimes nip divers, the sealions we interacted with always kept a respectful distance of an inch or two, and never came across as threatening.

After a few more weeks fishing, snorkelling, and hiking we left Pegasus to meet friends in Port Adventure. Pete, Ross, Gary, and Tony have been taking their trailer sailers to Stewart Island for the past twenty odd years for an annual pilgrimage. We had a great time catching up, but all too soon it was time to head north to Pattersons Inlet and then back to Dunedin to the ‘real world’ of bills, lawyers, and arguments.