25 October - 17 November 2025

Rugged Radiance, Rakiura

Clare Reilly

Ran Turner

Information

January 2025 was a mast year for the Southern Rātā. From the West Coast of New Zealand to Rakiura, Stewart Island, the forest was a blaze of reds and oranges as the southern rātās flowered with spectacular intensity.

During this remarkable season, Clare Reilly explored the south-eastern coast of Rakiura on an eight-day Heritage boat expedition to the remote coastal areas south-east of Oban, travelling down to Port Adventure and Port Pegasus and up the slow-moving Lords River. Rakiura, New Zealand’s third-largest island, remains largely uninhabited and inaccessible beyond the main settlement at Oban, with its lower reaches given over almost entirely to nature.

This wild island sanctuary is home to some of New Zealand’s rarest and most critically endangered bird species: the southern dotterel, whose numbers are falling due to feral cat predation; the kākāpō, once found in the Tin Range and now carefully nurtured under Department of Conservation protection on offshore islands; and the saddleback and mohua, thriving on predator-free Ulva Island.

This collection of paintings captures Clare Reilly’s responses to the precious natural treasures of Rakiura and the brief, breathtaking radiance of the rātā flowering within its dense green forests.

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Rugged Radiance, Rakiura
Stewart Island

From the air, the bush is pulsing with
a blazing radiance of reds and deep oranges,
in a brief flare of mast-year rata flowering.
A surprising sight of bold splashes of colour in amongst
the multitude of greens that inhabit the low forested hills.

Down the southeastern coastline, we dip into harbours and
up short flowing rivers, exploring nooks and crannies,
our zodiacs and kayaks slipping through clear, clean waters, with
the puff and snort of accompanying curious sea lions swimming close by.

Further south the land rises to the granite dome tops
of Gog and Magog, and while exploring the slopes of Bald Cone
we are treated to the sight of huge monolithic granite stone blocks
that cold and wind have carved into sculptured shapes.
Port Pegasus and Port Adventure twist fingers of deeply forested coast
into turquoise and azure waters sparkling in January sunlight.

Here, in a land little-visited, only deer, hunters and DoC workers have made tracks
through the dense bush. Remnants of abandoned tin mines and signs of failed human
habitation decay in the landscape, slowly rusting back into nature.
The continual struggle for survival of our rarest birds, under the ferocious assault
from feral cats, possums, rats and hedgehogs, mean they teeter on the brink of existence.
Southern dotterels, mohua, kakapo, kiwi and saddlebacks cling on.

However, Rakiura shines like a polished jewel in the sunlight of radiance, with
roaring surf beaches and headlands on the wild western side and quiet sandy coves on the east.
It’s a raw and rugged outpost in an often stormy southern ocean.
- Clare Reilly 2025