West End (Ulva Island) Oban, South Island, New Zealand
By DOCRakiura on 30-Sep-15. Waypoint GC64K35

Its a great day to come out to Ulva Island for a walk around. The weather is in our favour. Went down on the beach to get to check out the sea cave. Then back to the seat for lunch. And getting this snagged and tagged before returning to the wharf. Cheers. Sadly not much bird life seen or heard today.Day 9. Stewart Island on the radar for today with Taybee NZ and friend. With a side trip to Olva Island in the bargin. Hired a car for Stewart Island and killed that off within 20 min so ended up a very expensive trip. But still managed to get most places and thoroughly enjoyed the day. Then back to the mainland and relocate to Lumsden for the night.Zara, Toby and I are on an adventure, heading to the Dunedin Mega with some extra days along the way. Caught up with TaybeeNZ on 22 Oct for a day caching around Christchurch. Then made my way down to Waimati for the night. Arrived in Dunedin Thursday afternoon. Beautiful day Friday to cache around Port Chalmers. Mega Day was cold, wet and miserable and Sunday not much better. Sophia arrived on Sunday for a few days. Teamed up with TaybeeNZ for next three days touring the Catlains Monday, Stewart Island Tuesday and Milford Wednesday, then started making my way home, arriving Friday Morning.

Last summer we were on Ulva Island in Scotland and now Ulva Island in New Zealand. Both beautiful small islands served by water taxis, both so different - unique in so many ways. Today I saw four birds I have never seen before and will probably never see again. Thank you so much for having a change here to find too x

After a bumpy ride across to Ulva Island a joint caching walk was enjoyed with HarrisGang5. This was our third find. The log was saturated, so has been replaced in a new zip log. TFTC DOCRakiura

The bush and bird life are amazing. Found with MuzzaL53 and Dave on a fun trip south. Tftc

So nice to see this cache still active. What a beautiful day to be on the Ulva island. Stunning indeed. Thanks for maintaining this cache DOC.Visiting from Turangi

Located. Lots of little birds chirping as we got it. Paper slightly damp.

Yey easy found. I love the Island

Found it after a beautiful long walk across the island, just before our lunch stop. Have seen so many birds already, and heard more. TFTC

Travelled over to Ulva island this morning. Enjoyed a reasonable walk on the island which took us to this cache. It was a quick find. Nice beach a few metres further on. Braved a chilly and consequently very brief dip! #7266. TFTC.

Thanks!

A quick find while walking on the island. TFTC

TFTC! Beautiful day, beautiful walk

A family trip to walk Stewart Island. This coincided with a wedding anniversary for Mr and Mrs NZT as well as Mrs NZT's sister Birthday.We came across on the ferry wandering if we would ever make Stewart Island alive. The seas were some of the roughest Mr NZT had seen (have done a lot of diving in many place) and hanging on at the back of the ferry thinking we should have been quicker arranging flights.Eventually ended up here after walking across the Island. Muggle brother in law was leading the group and when I stopped to start my search stated he could see it from lower down the track.I signed the log and rehid with some more natural cover and the brother in law confirmed that he couldn't see this now.TFTC

On way back from beach - gorgeous day! Thank you

We arrived on Stewart Island last Sunday with a group of tramping friends and have walked the Rakiura Track and then flew to Mason Bay, walking to Freshwater Hut and taking the water taxi back to Oban yesterday. We saw one kiwi on the Great Walk and Im hoping to see more here. We are staying a few extra nights in Oban and today we visited Ulva Island which we enjoyed, seeing and hearing many birds and sea lions. The cache was quickly found but was damp though the waterproof paper was ok and so I could sign. Tftc

TFTC

Dieser Cache konnte heute erfolgreich geloggt werden.Danke an den owner fr's legen und pflegen TFTC Schmerzbefreit

Ty

Tftc!

Found this one, and a sealion having a siesta on the beach! TFTC

Found this on our Christmas Escape, plus a huge kiwi and a lazy sealion, on our walk!TFTC

What a treat meeting a sleeping sea lion on the beach! Loving Ulva Island! Thanks for the cache!

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Out for a day trip to Ulva pest free island. Saw Morepork owl, Kaka and kakariki, then came face to face with a sealion in the bush! Brilliant whiskers, but we kept our distance as was expecting him on the beach not in the forest! Beware the forestlion!

Tftc

A nice find in a lovely place

Quick visit while in SITft

Found the cache with Jezalinko after strolling down the beach to the cave. TFTC

Found with parkgirl13 after exploring the beach TFTC

Quick find heading down to west end beech

Found on a fabulous day on the island. Weather was perfect - lots of wildlife to spot. TFTC.

Over here on a smashing day with BackPAQer. It's great that DOC placed this cache here for us. Today we saw Weka, Kaka, Kakariki, Saddleback, South Island Robin, Oystercatcher, Duck, and Seagull! Thanks for this cache.

What a great Island. Came over here to rack up my southernmost finds ever. This place does not disappoint.

Yayyy fun find

Nice easy find

We spent a marvellous day here wandering quietly and slowly around this magical island, looking for birds and enjoying the fascinating plants. A quick find here before we headed on to the beach. Thanks for the hide.

Very well hidden and good fun to find

I was giving this cache a dry and a clean and a robin popped down next to me to see what I was doing. I also saw two saddlebacks in this area. What a fantastic cache location, thank you DoC.

Y

Lovely walk down to West End Beach TFTC

Our first day on Stewart Island and a bit of time to spare before check in The water taxi was free so off we went. Great walk with lots of birdsong, beautiful bush and awesome bays TFTC

Day 5 of the South Island adventure for Caro and I saw us head over to Ulva Island on the ferry. We walked all the tracks spotting birds, sea lions and all sorts of moss. As we wandered we collected the 4 caches that were here on the island. In total we walked 7kms over 4 amazing hours. Thanks for placing this one and bringing us here.

After staying with my brother in Invercargill for a few nights, we all came over to Stewart Island for a few nights to see the sights. He and his partner stayed one night while kestal and I stayed three to really see around a bit more. On our second day we all came over to Ulva Island for the day. It's not often you get opportunities such as this! We had beautiful weather then for about half an hour it rained, which we enjoyed as we got to experience the forest in lush rainy delightfulness. We saw sea lions and seals, so many bird types including the saddleback, no kiwis but hey they're nocturnal so we can cope with that... and then the rain cleared to allow us to enjoy the warmth of the sun and the birds singing again. We walked all the tracks and took our sweet time. Memories locked in.

Thanks for the cache, DOCRakiura!

Great hiding place

Such an amazing setting, I would have loved to spend more time. Tftc.

Saw a sea lion on the beach and in the forest the sound of birds was everywhere, what a wonderful island! TFTC!

My first visit to Stewart Island to complete the PWGT and go to Ulva Island as well as explore Oban..

Today is Ulva Island! What a special place... Very happy I made this trip. Just after picking this up, I spoke with a DOC volunteer who said they do 2 week stints here.. Lucky them to come here, and away from the world. Thanks for the placement.


TFTC DOCRakiura, the cache was found in good order Signed, sealed and returned to GZ. 3 find(s) of 9 today, making this find #3781

Tftc

Tftc. Mplc.
Tout humide. Need maintenance.

great spot

Found it! Thanks

Found this cache with The Titch on a day trip to Ulva Island off the back of a tramp along the Rakiura track. Great day out. Beautiful weather.

Nice easy find having returned from the beach

Tftc

LTF

Nice and easy spotted on a great and beautiful walk.

Easy find on a pleasant stroll around Ulva Island. TFTC.

Another quick find on Ulva. TFTC

This was our third cache find on the island so quite happy with that. Didn't spot the cache on the way down to the beach but found it on the way back. TFTC.

Found it during a very enjoyable visit to Ulva. TFTC!

Großartige Wanderung bei vielfältigen Vogelgesang toller Blick auf die Uhr und das Meer.
Gruß von kalkeule aus Rüdersdorf

Really wanted to get this and the earthcache but a large, angry obstacle stopped us accessing the area! He was 500m along the track from the beach, near the middle seat on the track!

Very windy day today! Arrived at 9am on a ferry w/ only 4 people. Walked all the trails and took many pictures of the birds. Had a fantastic time! There was a weka and chick about 3m from this cache. TFTC!

Great hint.
Paper is wet

Tftc have brought a group of girl guides to Stewart Island for 5 days. Will cache on the way!

Tftc!

Found, thank you DOC

Brilliant cache, easy to find with hint. BYOP Thanks DOC

Quickly found as it was exposed to the track. Replaced under bark cover.
Thanks for the cache, DOCRakiura
#3330

Found it in the tree as we were walking past great find

Found. TFTC

Easy find, waiting to be found. Just had a very close robin encounter nearby! TFTC

Actually easy find tftc

Love this beautiful place! It’s an absolute gem and wonderful place to visit.

Thanks for allowing the cache here DOC!

What a wonderful island and beautiful beaches here on the west end! We found the cache without even looking for it, so we made it a few inches more exciting. Tftc!

What an awesome bird paradise to be able to visit! Easy enough find and no sea lions so we got to watch a Weka on the beach instead. TFTC!

Merci !!

H

Forgot pen to sign log. Easy find, great track with beautiful bird companions and their songs. TFTC

Thoroughly enjoyed my time here. Would love to come back again one day TFTC

4Clubs and I spent three hours on the island and that was just enough time to find the two trads and also the earthcache. We walked every track and rested at every seat as well!! The Stewart Island robins were very inquisitive and even sat on my hand!! An easy find of this cache. Tftc

#1171. On a 3 day trip to Stewart Island, we took a day out to go and visit Ulva Island. We did the full walk available on the island and I promised myself I would get every geocache on the island.

This was the second geocache, and like the previous one, was very easy to find - and it was in great condition.

Thank you very much for the cache!

AliGle and I were doing a bit of a tour around the south of the South Island in a Jucy Camper over a few weeks. In the middle of our trip we headed over to Stewart Island for a couple of nights, which was my third visit there. After arriving in the morning, we then headed to the Wharf at Golden Bay and caught the ferry across to Ulva Island. We thoroughly enjoyed our afternoon walking around the island and spotting wildlife. A quick find here as we walked down to West End beach. TFTC!

Visiting the spectacular Ulva Island with Vistra as part of our world tour of the South Island. We found this cache easily on the descent down to the beach. Such a cool place to be.

Thanks heaps for this one

We had to wait for the muggles to pass on the track before claiming the cache - so many birds and people wandering about!

Incredible place, would highly recommend spending a day here. We didn’t come across the sea lion that has been lurking about.

After completing the Rakiura Track I went to Ulva Island for a day trip with my family. THe bird life here is truely amazing... brings hope to what we might, one day, find all over NZ. I think the cheeky robins were my favourite.

There's no need to leave the track for this cache and it was quickly found.... a weka come over to help me find it! TFTC!

Lovely walk

The walk to this end of the island was well worth it - the multiple birdsong all happening at once... a delight, then to see so many of the songsters up close and personal a bonus! The plant life is different too, some look like they've come from a different time, weirdly strange but beautiful.
My coords were a little off at GZ, the cache was not at an obvious spot, which already had signs of lots of GC activity. The cache can easily be reached from the trail when you are in the right spot, natural camo has been used.
TFTC I learnt heaps today

We had just enough time to find this one great walking through the bush looking out for birds.

Easy place to find

Over on the island doing the walks. Quick find. TFTC

The second day on Stewart Island was taken up by a visit to Ulva Island where I teamed up with CleanHarry and his family as well as one of my Grandsons.

After Sydney Cove we then went to Boulder Beach. We wanted to walk along the beach to the track to West End Beach but couldn't get there. It was high tide and a sealion was lying on the beach with his/her/its nose close to the bush line and its/her/his tail near the water. So we had to back track to the track intersection back 25 minutes and continue onto West End Beach. We found the cache and signed it off and then wanted to get to the beach itself but when we stood at the top of the last set of steps down to the beach we saw another sealion guarding the bottom step so that was the end of that and had to give the idea of getting to the nearby Earthcache a miss.

Cheers for the cache.

Looking for saddlebacks with tuffy and found at base of tree

Got a little distracted looking for this one by a kiwi then a kākā, but we did find it and sign it. TFTC

A 2.5 hour tour of the island and also time to gather a couple of caches, and hopefully the earth cache but our geology isn't great. This cache we found after realising that we didn't need to leave the track.....oops there. The logs were saturated, mushy and of little value. We removed said mush and dried the bag best we could and put in a new piece of waterproof paper. Waterproof here means something quite different to our home in Marlborough. Hopefully it keeps it going for the summer. Tftc.

TFTC

Bit soggy. No pen

Found it on a quiet Queens Birthday weekend. Couldn't sign it though as the logbook was too wet. And I didn't have any replacement logs. Omg nor did I take a picture as proof
Lovely island with birds aplenty and beautiful beaches.

This geocacher reported that the container is damaged.