Settlements
The only town is Oban, on Halfmoon Bay.
A previous settlement, Port Pegasus, once boasted several stores and a post office, and was located on the southern coast of the island. It is now uninhabited, and is accessible only by boat or by an arduous hike through the island. Another site of former settlement is at Port William, a four-hour walk around the north coast from Oban, where immigrants from the Shetland Islands settled in the early 1870s. This was unsuccessful, and the settlers left within one to two years, most for sawmilling villages elsewhere on the island.
For decades, the electricity supply on Stewart Island/Rakiura has come from diesel generators, and as a consequence electric power is around three times more expensive than on the South Island, at $NZ 0.52/kWH in 2008. The Southland District Council has partnered with Meridian Energy to develop renewable energy sources for the island, and experiments with photovoltaic and wind generation are in progress.
Read more about this topic: Stewart Island / Rakiura
Famous quotes containing the word settlements:
“That those tribes [the Sac and Fox Indians] cannot exist surrounded by our settlements and in continual contact with our citizens is certain. They have neither the intelligence, the industry, the moral habits, nor the desire of improvement which are essential to any favorable change in their condition.”
—Andrew Jackson (1767–1845)