Dunedin

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We’ve just spent the day eco-touring around Dunedin, New Zealand’s fourth largest city. We arrived in Dunedin yesterday evening, after a four and a half hour drive south from Christchurch. We arrived just in time to do a tour of the Speight’s Brewery. Speight’s is the “Pride of the South,” and is a part of the culture in the Dunedin area. The tour highlighted this cultural relationship, and gave an overview of brewing history in general, as well as the Speight’s brewing process. They still use many traditional brewing techniques, so it was pretty cool to see their brewing in action. After the tour we were able to taste test six of the seven beers that they brew. This was obviously my favourite part. Our guide taught us to “taste” the beer, instead of drink it. You could definitely taste the differences between the different brews, but it sure is difficult just to “taste” them. After a few you just end up drinking them anyways, but it’s nice to think that I know how to taste beer now.

This morning we drove out to the Otago Peninsula to see some penguins and albatross. Not animals that we ordinarily get to see back home. We started at Penguin Place, a privately owned Yellow-eyed Penguin reserve. The Yellow-eyed Penguin is the third tallest and rarest penguin in the world. The grounds are gorgeous, similar to a Hawaiian landscape minus the tropical flora, and the set up that they have is fantastic. The tourists are minimally intrusive, as a network of tunnels has been constructed to allow viewing of the penguin’s nesting grounds from up-close. At one point, a penguin was preening itself only about one foot away from us while we were viewing it from the tunnel. This was a truly unforgettable experience. I recommend Penguin Place to anyone. Even if you aren’t as lucky as we were to see the penguins, the views of the ocean are simply stunning. From there we drove to the Royal Albatross Centre five minutes away at Taiaroa Head. The Royal Albatross is an amazing bird with a 3m wingspan that spends 80% of its life flying over the sea. Taiaroa Head is the location of the only mainland nesting grounds of the Royal Albatross. The Royal Albatross story is similar to that of the Yellow-eyed Penguin. They had no natural predators on the island until ferrets and stoats were introduced to curtail the rapidly growing population of another introduced species, the rabbit. Since the ferret introduction, albatross and penguin numbers have declined, and these preserves have been created to protect them. All in all, we were impressed with the Otago Peninsula and really enjoyed our day of wildlife viewing.

Weather-wise, today has been the nicest day of our trip, 72 degrees with no clouds in the sky, and we are also at the southernmost point of our trip, at just above 46 degrees south. We’re currently driving to Te Anau, which will be our overnight stopover before we go tomorrow to my most anticipated stop on the trip, Milford Sound. The scenery on the drive from Dunedin to Te Anau is actually quite similar to that of the townships of Eastern Ontario. The roads gently meander through the countryside and the land is hilly and mostly cleared of trees, except for dense pockets of forest that are comprised primarily of coniferous trees, very similar to those back home. There are differences however. In New Zealand, the land is cleared exclusively for pasture, mostly for sheep, of which there are many thousands, but also for cows and deer, and occasionally a mountain rises a couple thousand feet above the surroundings. You don’t find any of those amongst the farms back home.

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Photos

Speight’s Brewery Tour
The guys enjoying some of the finished product at the Speight's Brewery Tour.

Speight’s Brewery Tour
Pouring myself another in the taste testing area.

Penguin Place
The view out over Penguin Bay.

Penguin Place
Up close and personal with a Yellow-Eyed Penguin at Penguin Place.

Royal Albatross Centre
Check out these wingspans.