Make Way for Ducklings

The sign at the top is from the motor camp where we stayed in Dunedin for a couple of nights late last year. The footprints were painted on the road way to reinforce the point.

For more photos of interesting signs, visit Carmi here.

The Great Wildlife Search

The Otago peninsula (just out of Dunedin) is known for its wildlife experiences, many of course, packaged and priced for tourists. I've been wanting for years to see the albatrosses, however Kay (who worked there last summer) had told me that the observatory there is closed from September to November for nesting season.

In the end I decided to take a drive out on the peninsula anyway, just to see what we could see. After all, we checked out of our accommodation in Dunedin at 10 a.m. and check in time in Oamaru (just over an hour away) wasn't till four.

I wasn't sorry. At Taiaroa Head



we arrived just in time to see a magnificent albatross soaring over the carpark - and it was entirely free to view. Just to underscore the size of this amazing bird, on one pass, it was followed by a seagull madly flapping its wings trying to keep up, while the albatross, many times its size, travelled in an effortless glide.

This is my best photo of the albatross.



Yes, I missed it. (That's a duck in the previous photograph). I guess my bird photography skills aren't what I thought they were, the one in the post a couple of days ago being a lucky fluke.

We also spotted a sealion basking on the beach below. I hoped to get a "head up" photo but it wasn't cooperating. In the end we decided that it just wanted to bask in the sun, and we started to walk away, at which point it made a dash for the sea, which it had reached by the time I had my camera pointed.



This beach had a sign up saying that penguins come ashore here at dusk, (from 8.30 at this time of year). If I had known that, I might have come out the night before instead of lounging on my bunk.

However we were headed to Oamaru which is known for penguins. Upon enquiry, we were told where we might see hoiho (yellow-eyed penguins) from about 5 pm on, at no cost, or little blue penguins from dusk, at a charge. So we tried for the yellow-eyed penguins first. The public viewing hide has been constructed on cliffs above the beach. These are not very social birds so they come ashore in ones and twos, their nests well apart. The pair we spotted were well down the beach. Can you see them? (This is maximum zoom - 12x - on my camera).



Perhaps this heavily cropped photo will help.



The little blue penguins are much more social and live in a colony. They have been protected by the fencing off of an area and predator proofing it, which has allowed for the building of a tourist facility and viewing stand rather like one at a sports arena. So, of course, a charge to view. The advantage though is the orange lights installed for easier viewing. Apparently the penguins don't see orange light and think it is dark. Strictly no photographs though, because the flash will put them off. (If I had been bolder, I would have taken a few shots of the early arrivals, before the flash was necessary. But I'm good and play by the rules, mostly). It was quite fascinating to see the rafts of penguins arriving (that's what each group is called), surfing up on the rocks on a breaking wave, and clambering over the rocks to get to their burrows.

Having paid the entry fee, I was a bit miffed the next morning when a young Japanese woman at the backpackers told me she had gone to see penguins on the beach behind the Whisky Company, at no cost at all (but of course, no orange light).

More Dunedin Photos

Dunedin was a prosperous city in the 19th century due to the discovery of gold in the region. Later, however, industry and the population moved north. This means that the old buildings weren't pulled down for development as much as in some other cities, and it has a fine collection of Victorian and Edwardian architecture.

This is the wonderfully ornate railway station:





A detail of an old house near the archives building:



About a fifth of the population are university students. Since exams are over, many of the students have left town, but not without leaving their mark:

Road Trip

I took a few days off work, since it was over a year since my last holiday, and went on a road trip. My youngest daughter came along for the ride.

We drove down to Dunedin last Thursday, where I spent the afternoon doing family history research in the Presbyterian Church archives, before checking into our motor camp. Then Kay came to pick us up and we went to an Indian vegan cafe for a meal, followed by a poetry reading. Photos on Kay's blog here. (Scroll down, it is quite a long post).

The next day I went for an early walk along St Kilda and St Clair beach (they merge together), which is familiar to me from the photos Kay has posted on her blog from time to time.





These children were part of a school group who had been staying at the motor camp.



Then research in the Dunedin branch of the National Archives while daughter C browsed in the museum, followed by a visit to the Early Settlers Museum.

We were planning to drive round the Otago Peninsula but I realised I had left the sunblock at the motor camp. So I headed back to put some on, on the way I decided to stop in at Anderson's Bay cemetery to visit a few relatives.



This is the amazing view from the cemetery - I believe the beach is called Tomahawk Beach.



It was a very hot day and by the time we returned to the motor camp I had a nasty headache so there was a change of plans and I spent the rest of the day being very lazy resting on my bunk.

Lots more photos to come.