To Dunedin via The Catlins

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Unfortunately we let someone else take our pictures off our camera and they screwed it up, so we lost another 200+ pictures again. So we don't have any pictures for this blog. So let this be a lesson always do it yourself.

We left Marianne and Geoff's today and headed to Dunedin, which is on the East Coast. We took the Southern Scenic Route around the bottom of the South Island following the coast, round the Catlins.

Our first stop along the way was Porpoise Bay, where the world's rarest dolphins reside, the Hector Dolphin. We couldn't see them clearly but we did see quite a few of them swimming around in the Bay. The next stop was to check out a fossilized forest. It was pretty neat, you could actually see the trees that used to be there but from volcanic eruptions were covered in ash and mud, which eventually turned them into rock. The fossil forest is 160 million years old.

From there we checked out yet another NZ waterfall and stopped at Nugget Point, which is the home to 3 types of seals. This is the only place in the world where the where seal lions, elephant seals, and NZ fur seals live together. They were quite aways below us so we couldn't see which seal was what exactly, but we could still see them laying on the rocks and playing in the ocean. The Point itself was interesting in the fact that one side of the point had rugged coastline and the wind was blowing, but the otherside was calm with a more gentle coastline.

Our last stop for the day was Roaring Bay, where we saw the worlds rarest penguins the Yellow-eyed Penguins. We saw 5 penguins and even got to watch one come ashore and waddle out of the ocean. They come ashore to nest and at this time of year the young have hatched and they come ashore to feed them. We didn't see any babies, but that is likely due to the fact that they will nest anywhere between 50-20 km from shore.

After a full day of driving we arrived in Dunedin and set up our tent for our 3 days we have in Dunedin.

On the 17th we did a tour of the Cadbury Chocloate factory which is in Dunedin. Since it was Saturday the factory wasn't running so we didn't get to see any chocloate being made, but we did get free choc so that made up for it. The best part of the tour was the end when they drop a ton of chocloate down a silo. I can't remember the size of the silo but it was probably the same size as a dairy silo in Canada. It was freaking big anyways.

After the factory we drove to Taiaroa Heads to see the only colony of Albatross that nest on a mainland, instead of the offshore islands. We saw the Royal Albatross, which is the 3rd largest bird in the world with a wing span of up to 3m. We also learned that they can't actually fly they glide instead and can only take off when there is a strong wind. As long as there is a wind they can glide for days before landing. They only come ashore to nest and raise their chicks, and the rest of the time they live on the water. They breed every 2 years and it takes a year from the time the egg is layed until the young is ready to fly. We saw 4 birds sitting on their young, but we couldn't get very close to them to get any good pictures. The area is protected so we had to stand inside a building to look at them.

Also at Taiaroa Heads is a Fort that was built because of fears of an attack from Russia. The main draw for this Fort is the Disappearing Gun. This gun would rise from under the ground to fire and then when it was shot the recoile would cause it to drop back down. The gun would rise and fall from a combination of air pressure and water. This is the only place where the gun is still in working condition.

On the 18th we did a train ride on the Taieri Gorge Railway. The train leaves from Dunedin and goes through rocky gorges and crosses 12 viaducts. Viaducts is a fancy name for a tall bridge, the tallest one is 50m above the creek bed. We also went through some tunnels and the longest one was 437m. The railway was built to support the gold rush and farming that was happening inland. Construction began in 1879 and it took until 1921 for the line to finish at Cromwell. The total track length was 235km but now only 65km of the track is left. The train went to the end of the line at Middlemarch, then went back to Dunedin. The ride was good but it was hard to take pictures, but that really doesn't matter considering we lost all the pictures anyways.

Once we got back to Dunedin we went and checked out the steepest street in the world, Baldwin St. It has a gradient of 1 in 1.266m, and now we can say we've also walked the steepest street in the world.

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