Day 6 Wednesday, Sep. 01 -- Otago Penninsula

Synopsis

Visited the Moraki boulders, a collection of strangely spherical boulders on a beach, first thing in the morning. We then drove down the eastern coast to Dunedin, NZ’s fifth largest city, and the south island’s second largest. We spent the rest of the day on the Otago Peninsula, which is a best known as a bird sanctuary, and took a couple of tours seeing the Royal Albatross (the Otago Peninsula is the only place in the world where these birds step foot on land) and the endangered yellow penguins, among many other unique bird species.

Detailed Journal

We woke up this morning around 0700. We were quick to get ready and head out to see the Moraki (mo-RACK-e) boulders. These are huge (up to 7ft in diameter) almost perfectly spherical boulders that have been formed within the coastal lands and slowly pushed out to the beach from environmental effects including erosion and weathering. We played around there briefly before hoping in the RV and heading for Dunedin (done-ED-in). We decided to park in the Countdown (grocery store) parking lot with the plan of grabbing some groceries and then hitting the visitor’s center. We did the shopping first. When we returned to the car we saw a guy passing out parking tickets. Apparently they are serious there about customers only for one hour or less. So we decided to find a new parking spot on the street.

We walked over to the visitor’s center, which is located on the Octagon (the city center is based on an octagon). After running through options with a very friendly staff person, we decided to book 2 tours: a 1430 cruise to view the royal albatross and a 1615 tour for viewing of the yellow-eyed penguin. We then walked around the Octagon, purchased a few souvenirs from the local shops, changed some US money for NZ dollars, and grabbed a few snapshots before heading to the car.

We drove out to Otago Peninsula. The main road around the peninsula is narrow at times, but nothing compared to the narrow roads inside the peninsula that led to Lover’s Leap, a hike suggested by the person at the visitor’s center. It was, however, closed for the “lambing season”. We then drove around Hooper’s Inlet, back to the main road at Portobello. The drive continued to Taiaroa Head and the Royal Albatross Center. We checked out the displays inside and then walked down to Cliffs. We and saw large surf and a couple of shags. Shags are an indigenous bird that the person at the center told us to look out for because it is their mating season which means they will have green coloring around their eyes and the feather on the top of their head look like a “punk” hairdo. We saw two that fit this description. We then walked down to Pilots Beach and saw one fur seal hanging out and sun bathing on the rocks.

At around 2pm we began to backtrack along the main road to catch our cruise. We were told to be there at 220pm for plenty of time to load and get out into the bay. Our boat arrived at about 240pm. Our cruise was with Monarch Wildlife Cruises and Tours. We cruised around Taiaroa Head and saw an adult royal Albatross in flight. We looked up at Taiaroa head and saw some of last year’s chicks (there are 8 in total – we saw 5 of them). The whole process of laying the egg, hatching a chick and the first flight takes a whole year. We were there just as last year’s chicks were considering taking their first flight. After a chick is born, the parents go out to sea to get food for the young. When the chicks reach adolescent age, they are overweight with too much body fat and need to lose some kg’s before they can actually take flight. We saw the end of this stage. The adolescents have been starving for some time and are anxious to make flight and get off the shore. Our guide told us that their feet are about the size of ping pong paddles, which is another reason they are anxious to fly (their feet aren’t really made for walking). So we watched them for a while spread their wings, wanting to fly, then getting nervous and bringing the wings back down. We also saw a large number of shags and red-billed gulls. As we rode back towards the starting point, we saw a seal lounging on the beach and another flipping in the water.

After about 45 minutes in the water, we headed back towards the dock. Lynette was somewhat ready to get off the boat from a wee bit of sea sickness (she held it together, though). The waves on the bay were absolutely huge. We watched them crashing onto Taiaroa Head. It was really cool.

We had over a half an hour before our other tour, so we decided to head back to Taiaroa Head to see if the adult albatross was hanging around (our guide from the cruise thought we might get another look at him over there). We had no luck.

We drove back to the Penguin Place. Our tour began at 415pm. We had a brief informational session with our guide in which he described the annual pattern of the yellow-eyed penguin (the rarest penguin in the world). We were going to be looking for the penguins in the season in which they come to shore and begin their nest preparations. We hopped into a bus and headed to the shore-side of their property. We began hiking down towards the shore. Along the way, we saw 3 or 4 fur seals (adolescent males who are staying out of the way of big bull males who are currently claiming their ladies right now) lounging on the rocks above the water. We were probably within 5 meters of them. We continued our walk (looked for little blue penguins on the way with no avail). We went down into camouflaged trenches that were built among the yellow-eyed penguin nesting boxes for viewing purposes. The nesting boxes were built by the land owners – apparently a yellow-eyed penguin will not lay an egg if it can see another one (they are the only anti-social penguin). So, the reserve built boxes and pointed them in different directions so that no 2 boxes can see each other. We saw several out and about. We watched a few calling out and claiming their territory. We also saw two penguins were “bathing” each other outside their nest (It was so cute!).

When we finished our tour of the yellow-eyed penguins, we drove back to Pilots Beach to see some Little Blue Penguins come ashore (the sign said they come on shore at dusk or a little later). We sat on the edge and talked to some Canadians who had lived in New Zealand for the last year. They were bartenders in Queenstown. It seemed like a great time – something to consider? Shortly after dark, we heard some squawking in the bushes behind us. A minute later, we could barely make out some moving figures on the beach, so we moved over a bit to get a better look. A few minutes later, the two Little Blue Penguins came walking up the path. They were the cutest little things, and they walked hunched over with their heads down. They were quite small, about the body size of a seagull, and the Canadian told us that they’re the smallest breed of penguin. We decided not to wait for any more and jumped in the van to head back to town. On our way out of the Pilots Beach parking lot, we came across one of the penguins walking up the road. We felt bad for frightening him, but he was so cute, waddling up the road.

We drove back up Otago Peninsula. Jason worked on web page, while Lynette drove. We stopped at Arc Café for their free internet to upload the web page, but could not use Jason’s computer. We drove to Dunedin Holiday Park, but it was closed (845pm). We then got onto the coastal highway and drove down the road a bit to Mosgiel Caravan Park, but it was full with permanent residents.

We parked in a parking lot outside of the caravan park for the night, boiled some hot dogs for dinner, and slept in our sleeping bags. We both woke up in the middle of the night to the sound of rain on the roof of the camper.

Pictures

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