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Published: January 24th 2007
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The 8am ferry back to Bluff was as uneventful as the first ferry ride, with the added additions only of diving petrels and Buller's mollymawks. From Bluff we drove back to Invercargill and the Southland Museum. The tuatarium here is probably the best place to see captive tuatara in New Zealand. The star is Henry, believed to have been hatched 'around the end of the 19th century', according to the sign, making him between 100 and 150 years old. In other words, guesswork. He's been at the museum since 1971. Tuatara certainly can live to a ripe old age, at least a hundred, possibly two, perhaps even more. Its probably stretching it a bit, but its possible that there are still tuatara around that were alive when Captain Cook first passed by. The museum itself is small but has interesting displays on New Zealand and Antarctica.
Next door is Queens Park where there is an aviary complex built in 1997 for a million dollars. I was last there just after opening and it still looks just as good (not a million dollars good, but still good). As well as various exotic aviary birds, there are also native birds such as
kaka, kea, weka and Campbell Island teal.
We took the Southern Scenic Route back towards Dunedin. It is longer than State Highway 1 but has much the same scenery: farmland. There are several interesting places to stop off at along the way though. First stop for us was the petrified forest at Curio Bay. This is a 180 million year old forest entombed in rock, apparently one of the most extensive fossilised Jurassic forests known from anywhere in the world. The name may conjure up images of an actual foresty-looking place but naturally the trees are no longer standing, instead being preserved horizontally in rock strata along the shore. Luckily it was low tide when we got there, which of course is when they can be viewed best. Right next door is Porpoise Bay, an almost-guaranteed spot to see Hector's dolphins. There is a resident group of the pint-sized cetaceans there. They were out when we paid them a visit.
Next destination was Nugget Point, claimed as the only place on the New Zealand mainland where fur seals, Hooker's sealions and elephant seals co-exist. It makes it sound like you can just rock on up and there they
will all be, lounging around in piles on the shore. The truth is that fur seals are common everywhere and the other two can turn up anywhere around the southern beaches. When the Maori first arrived in New Zealand there were huge colonies of all three species around the coasts. By the time Europeans got here only the fur seal was left, the others having been exterminated. Never being a people to leave a job unfinished, the Europeans did their best to make the fur seal go the same way but failed. Once sealing had been stomped out, the fur seal rookeries recovered. It took a long time but eventually sea lions started coming back too, from their subantarctic haunts. Now there are several at any one time somewhere in the south and a few have even stayed to breed. There are also sporadic elephant seals here and there. At the lighthouse viewing platform there were fur seals in plenty but none of the others. We went back down the hill to the penguin hide at Roaring Bay where there were no penguins. A dead fur seal was having its face eaten by a black-backed gull on the beach. And
then we spotted a Hooker's sealion, also on the beach but pretending to be part of the sand.
Before we hit Dunedin we made a detour to the Sinclair Wetlands, where there was a distinct lack of any sort of birds apart for redpolls. In Dunedin we checked into the Law Courts Hotel and Backpackers. There was no-one else there so we had the entire dorm to ourselves. Its not somewhere I would recommend staying because there must be better places. The toilets and showers were fine, but the floor looked like it hadn't been swept in months let alone washed (ever!). I just spent three months backpacking round southeast Asia and I never saw a floor that dirty -- and I slept out in the jungle.
It was getting late already, but we still hadn't managed to hook up with any yellow-eyed penguins on the trip so it was back to Taiaroa Head to try and find the road that seemed to lead to a penguin colony. Instead it led to a commercial tour company. We then tried Sandfly Bay but by then it was almost dark and we found neither penguins nor the elephant seal that
we had been told may be there.
BIRD OF THE DAY: not much choice, so I'll go with the diving petrels ("oh, they look like little flying penguins!"). Honourable mention goes to the Hooker's sealion.
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