Advertisement
Published: February 11th 2010
Edit Blog Post
Wed 2/10/2010
Wild Things in Dunedin
Today we were in Dunedin New Zealand which is said to be the most Scottish town outside of Scotland. We took to the “Nature’s Wonders - Wildlife Cruise and Penguins” tour which was a full day one that left just after 8. Note it was rather chilly (about 60) but the boat provided jackets and binoculars for everyone. Along with coffee and very good cookies. It started with a boat cruise thru the harbor and out to ocean to view the many birds including Black Swan, Spotted Shag, Black Bat Gull, Royal Spoonbill, Shutty Shearwater Shag, Southern Albatross, Northern Albatross, and White Capped Albatross. One of the Albatross even landed on the water near the boat for a great photo op. We also saw some chicks in the Royal Albatross nesting area. We also saw lots of fur seals and a sea lion trying to hide in the sand.
Our bus for the day met us when we got off the boat and we headed for the Aquarium which wasn’t my favorite part of the tour. They really didn’t have much there but it was only an hour. The best part was the
seaweed chips. They dry the seaweed then fry it in Sesame oil. They were very salty.
We then headed out to Nature’s Wonders which is a private sheep farm where they also have a café and wildlife tours. Out lunch was unusual consisting of several types of salads, fried mussels, and cheesy fish. The cold potato salad was flavored with mint. Not sure anyone enjoyed them that much. At least they had the “real” coke.
It was then time for our wild life tour on 8 wheel argos with 6 passengers (2 in front with the driver and 4 in back). It was extremely steep and bumpy as advertised (i.e. an E Ticket). We made a couple of quick photo stops including the nest of two Blue penguins (used to be called fairy penguins) which weigh about 2 pounds. We then had a long stop just above the Fur Seal area we’d seen earlier from the boat. Some of them were very close and you could see the baby’s trying to get into the tidewater area behind the rocks to play in the water. Our next stop was to see if there were any Yellow-eyed penguins on the
other side of the island and we did see 3. One standing on the beach and two in the grassy hill above it. They were pretty far away but visible thru binoculars or the zoom on the camera. There was also another Blue penguin nest where they had just a peep hole to look thru and see them. No pictures allowed of this one. When we got back to the café we realized how dusty we all were even with the jackets they provided.
After the tour we headed thru the hills which had some great views and then thru the town of Dunedin. No time to stop at the Cadbury factory. We got back to the ship a bit later than planned and took showers to get rid of the dust before heading to dinner. We both had the prime rib and a chocolate custard for dessert. We then did the blog for the previous day before spending some time in the casino. John couldn’t get the seat he wanted so didn’t end up playing Blackjack but I was able to win $10 for the night so not too bad.
Another early day and long tour tomorrow
in ChristChurch.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.07s; Tpl: 0.024s; cc: 10; qc: 22; dbt: 0.0357s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1mb