Stewart Island/Rakiura #2: Tales & Truths

Digging deep into Stewart Island’s history, it is hard to avoid the stories and myths that locals whisper in the wind and dusty library books hold secret. I’ve been listening carefully, to those that were born and raised here, those that chat away, those that say they witnessed some of the following incidents. Here is a collection of the local legends I came across but as with most mythical stories, I cannot guarantee for their accuracy.

Whether you believe them or not, you need to differentiate between fact and fiction. As pun-master Jonathan Frakes in Beyond Belief put it:

“Is this story a product of a writer’s imagination? Or have we unlocked the truth?”

A Vanished World in Northern Otago

The van was loaded with a dozen people from my writing course. Enthusiastically, I squeezed my buttocks between those of my classmates in the rear row, where space was limited and conversations inevitable — but that was easy to deal with because I was with good company. Nevertheless, a scent of competition was in the air. At least that’s what I hoped it was. We left Dunedin northwards and followed the windy road along the coast.