Advertisement
Published: August 6th 2007
Edit Blog Post
More Wildlife Encounters on the Otago Peninsula
After finishing the train ride the day before, we ran into Emily, one of the two college students that Kel met while waiting for exit paperwork in the Sydney airport. (Read the final blog from Australia called Spending Time and Money in Sydney if you’re wondering what I’m talking about) As we were walking down the streets of Dunedin Emily called out Kel’s name which screeched us to a halt bewildered that someone knew us. She was nice enough to share some insights with us about cool things to do in the area. With more info under our belts we decided to spend and extra day in the area in order to explore the Otago Peninsula just outside of town. Thanks, Emily!
The Otago Peninsula is known for its wildlife and, as our faithful readers obviously know, we love to see wildlife, especially when we can see it in its natural habitat. Thus we started our day by taking the hour long drive out to the tip of the peninsula. The very tip of Otago is known for its birdlife, namely the fact that it’s a nesting area for one
of the world’s largest birds, the Royal Albatross.
Royal Albatross Reserve I can hear you on the other side of the computer stating, “How interesting can a species of bird really be?” Well, in answer to you question, it can be pretty interesting when it has a wing span of more than 9 feet.
When you see pictures of the birds, they look like any other sea type bird, white bodies with dark wings which are used primarily for using wind currents for soaring high over our heads. It’s not until you get a reference point on their actual size that you become amazed. Inside the research center they show you a mock up of the bird turned sideways so that you can get a feel for the fact that one of these Albatrosses is more than three feet longer than the average man is tall. Wild.
We took the tour, which takes you up to an enclosed viewing area on top of a hill at the very end of the peninsula. From here we could see at least three Albatross chicks which were nesting on the cliff side. We were really very lucky, this
isn’t a good time of year to see a full grown Albatross. From March through September the Albatrosses return to the sea and leave their chicks behind on the cliffs. By May (i.e. now), the chicks are large enough that most predators would have a hard time taking one of these birds down. Thus, the parents can return to the sea only to return periodically to feed the chicks who can’t yet fly. We were actually lucky enough to be in the observation post as two of these birds returned to feed their chicks.
As you stand there, staring out to sea and watching these huge fluffy white chicks sit on the cliffs you start to get bored and a little dazed. All of a sudden, a huge shadow passes over head which catches your attention and then you see this huge bird glide past. Each bird circles the hill a couple of times in order to get their bearings before landing. This gave us ample opportunity to see each bird a couple of times. I got some pictures which you can see for yourself, but they don’t really do the birds justice. These things really are huge. After
spending your whole life seeing birds and coming up with a mental image of what a bird should look like, it’s a little shocking to see one that is way outside of your standard mental image. Think more pterodactyl than bird!
Victory Beach After our tour at the Albatross Center we really wanted to see some sea lions and seals which are supposed to be at one many of the beaches around the peninsula. The LP and some other people suggested Victory Beach. This beach on the south east tip of the peninsula can only be reached by hiking. What’s a day in NZ without some serious walking?
We drove to the parking area and ran into two Germans who were just returning from the beach. We asked if the walk was worth it - they said the beach was nice but that there was no wildlife to be seen. We figured that we had time to kill and that maybe we would get lucky enough to find some newly arrived wildlife, so off we went.
We got spoiled on the first half of the walk, it was flat and grassy making for a real
nice 35 minutes of hiking after all of the uphill walking we’ve been doing lately. Unfortunately as we approached the beach things got much more hilly. The next 20 minutes consisted of uphill, downhill, back uphill…repeat ad infinitum. We finally arrived at the beach to find it completely deserted, no people but also no wildlife. It did give us a chance to really enjoy being alone, because we really haven’t had enough time with each other these last few months. (Just a joke, folks) The beach was really nice and we enjoyed the 45 minutes we spent watching the waves while we walked up and down the beach. Realizing it was getting a little late, we set off for the car knowing that we had another 45 minutes to walk before we would get back. We had one more appointment for the day which we both thought was pretty important!
Yellow Eyed Penguins, Little Blue Penguins, and Seals Our final stop for the day was the Penguin Reserve which was really close to the Albatross Center we had been at earlier in the day. We made it just in time for the last tour of the day
at 4:15. In the winter they only do tours in the later afternoon because the penguins don’t return from their day’s fishing until almost sundown.
After a quick drive to the beach in the tour company’s bus we arrived at the half a mile stretch of beach that the penguins use for roosting. Our tour guide proceeded to walk us through a series of paths, some of which were covered and disguised so that the penguins couldn’t see us, so that we could see the penguins as they returned from the sea.
The Yellow Eyed Penguin is one of the largest of the 18 species of penguins around the world and is also one of the rarest. There are currently less than 4,000 of these penguins left in the world and all of them live in and around mainland NZ. They are reclusive birds who tend to live far apart from each other because they like their space. In some cases these birds will climb steep hillsides and well into land to ensure they get their space from other penguins.
We were lucky enough to get to see more than 10 of these birds in our hour
and a half on the reserve. Some of them were as close to us as 10 feet away which was really cool. We also got a chance to see four fur seals and a couple of the smaller and more common little blue penguins which were in their roosts (the roosts looked like small man-made apartments and were made for them by the preserve staff. Nice digs).
The Yellow Eyed Penguins are unique amongst penguins because of their bright yellow eyes and stripe of yellow fur which looks kinda like a small penguin sized Zorro mask. They stand about as tall as the average person’s knee and squawk in a high pitched way that can be heard from a long way away. The really funny part about penguins is their waddle when on land. They can swim like crazy out in the sea but are obviously not meant to cover large distances once they get out of the water. A couple of times we got to see them hop over larger roots that got in their way, everyone would giggle whenever it occurred. Penguins are just funny looking, that’s why we love them!
After the sunset we returned
to the car park area and set off for home in Dunedin. I would highly recommend a visit here if you get down this way, Otago is full of all sorts of cool stuff and, as is typical in NZ, has some gorgeous landscape and beaches. Well worth the time it takes to get here.
Hope everything is going well back home and that you are enjoying your spring!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.078s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 12; qc: 28; dbt: 0.0313s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
Haines
non-member comment
Penguins - the new black
Aren't penguins great? I have a hard time explaining my obsession for watching these animals, but they're amusing. It's like watching a fat man without knees try to walk!