Well… it might be a bit late for this, but… HAPPY NEW YEAR everyone! We hope you had a nice holiday season, and are ready for a year filled with postcards! We spent this period dragging our boxes of postcards across Europe, and are now firmly set in the southern tip of the continent, where the sun is warm and the oranges are sweetest. :)

Meanwhile, the Little Mail Carriers, have been doing some traveling of their own… to the other side of the globe! Here they are to tell you all about their adventures in the antipodes with their host Vicki (aka madvix):

Hi everyone! We were excited to be invited to Stewart Island to get away from it all! Stewart island is New Zealand's third biggest island. Captain Cook originally thought it was part of the South Island and so it was named in honour of first officer Stewart on a sealing expedition from Sydney in 1809. He determined that it was actually an island!! It is also known as Rakiura, which translates from the Maori as “Land of the glowing skies”, in honour of the beautiful sunsets and sunrises.

We arrived on the island by plane, which is how all the mail comes. They’re quite small planes, carrying a maximum of nine people but the pilot did a brilliant job and the seats have warm and comfy sheepskin covers! We even got to travel up front next to the pilot!

A van came to the airstrip to pick us up and take us down into Halfmoon Bay or Oban, which is where everyone on the island lives. Although Stewart Island is three times the size of Singapore there are only 381 people living full time here! The first views of the island are lots of native bush and you can hear the birds all through the trees.

The Post Office is also the Flight Centre so Vicki was there to pick us up when we landed in her mailbox! There are no posties on Stewart Island, everyone comes down to the Post Office to collect their mail and have a gossip! That means we are officially the first Mail Carriers (little or otherwise) here ever!

We got to sort the mail; up until a couple of months ago all the mail was hand-franked and sent on it’s way. Unfortunately the new-fangled computers can’t read these stamps so that’s not allowed anymore, but you can get a stamp in your passport or on your envelope as long as it’s not near the postage stamps.

We also met Councillor Ford in the Post Office. He is the Island’s MP and also lived next door to us. He approved our Stewart Island passports and they were duly stamped; we belong!

The Post Office is right on the beach, like most places in Stewart Island, and we could watch all the fishermen coming and going. There aren’t as many now as in earlier years, but fishing is still a very important part of the community. Vicki works in the Fishermen’s Co-operative so we went to work with her for a couple of days. It happened to be crayfish (Spiny Rock Lobster) season while we were there, so we sorted the crayfish into different sizes and put them into holding tanks where they sit for a day before they have to fly to China. What a journey for them! We got to ride on a couple and Ana even got to sit on a beautiful purple/lilac coloured one which is quite rare apparently.

The next day we went down to the fish shed where there was a haul of Blue Cod to be filleted. The cod here is a different species from the endangered cod in the Northern hemisphere, so we didn’t feel bad about seeing them. They were huge! Another Postcrosser, Jojogypsy, owns the cafe on the wharf and she cooked us up some tasty battered and deep fried cod and chips.

We had a bit of a scare meeting some of the local bird life. Stewart Island is a great place to see a Kiwi but we were always tucked up in bed nice and early and didn’t see any of those. What we did see though was a lot of the native parrots called Kakas. They’re very cheeky and inquisitive and have learnt that humans mean food. We didn’t feed them though as human food can upset them and make them sick, but I think that might have upset them anyway as one took off with Ana in his beak! Thankfully he put her down not too far away and she was fine although a little shaky!

Anyone who goes to Stewart Island has to go to the South Sea Hotel. It is the only bar on the island and also has accommodation and a restaurant. It is the hub of the community and if you need to find anyone, you can get an answer there! We bumped into the Island’s third Postcrosser while we were there; farfarfaraway works in the restaurant! We also went into the bar for a coke and got invited into a quiz team for the famous Sunday Night Quiz. And our team, No Eye Deer won!

Lots of people when they visit New Zealand pick up paua shell souvenirs and jewelry to take home, but I bet they haven’t seen the creature that lives inside the shell! They are a species of abalone and the beautiful bluey green shells (haliotis iris) can only be found in New Zealand. Unfortunately they are quite hard to find in a lot of places in New Zealand due to people taking too many but they are quite well protected down on the Island (as the local’s call it!). It does make you wonder who thought of eating them first because they don’t look very appetizing!!

Although we flew on and off the Island the other way to reach it is by ferry. The journey takes an hour from Bluff and can be very rough sometimes as Fouveaux Strait is very shallow but the catamarans are very stable and the crew all very experienced. We were allowed to sit at the wheel, but not touch anything!

The biggest surprise to us was when the monthly Stewart Island News came out and there was a photo of us in it! And they want to hear about our adventures too!

We’ve definitely had a lot of rest and relaxation while we’ve been here; it’s like a different way of life with only one supermarket and a handful of shops and cafes, but we’re ready to go on our next adventure back to the bright city lights!