Well, today was a lot of fun. I managed to drag myself out of bed in good time to have breakfast at the little cafe I’ve been frequenting lately and make the bus tour of the city that I was planning to take. Turns out that there were only four of us on the bus, and the other three got off to visit Olveston House. So the second half of the tour was just me and the driver—very sociable. He did his standard patter, but we spoke more casually at each of the stops.
The tour took in many of the sights I’d already seen but, for instance, when we stopped at the park in Mornington (see yesterday), it was morning and there was a low mist hanging over the harbour. It was breathtaking (see the photos). We also visited Baldwin Street, officially the world’s steepest street (1:1.26). It is an insane straight-up-the-hill street. The tour driver pointed out one house right at the top and told me how they transported the house, already made, up the street on a low-loader. Seems like an impossible feat but with a dozer at the top winching and another beneath the truck pushing, it apparently took no time at all!
So, the bus tour was quite pleasant and filled in some blanks. As I was walking back to the hotel, I bumped into one of my colleagues from the conference and we had coffee together in one of my ‘favorite’ haunts in Dunedin. He and I then went our separate ways. I decided to buy myself some gloves because the afternoon’s tour of the various wildlife habitats was predicted to be pretty cold. The day was actually spectacular by this time; clear, bright and sunny. Not warm, but a beautiful winter’s day. Anyway, I visited a couple of men’s stores on the shopping strip and picked up a nice pair of lamb’s-wool lined black leather gloves that were on sale (20% off!). A good result for a quick look around.
After a small lunch I was collected from the hotel by Elm Wildlife Tours. Tony, the guide, and I got on very well from the outset. We collected the other tour participants and headed off up the peninsula. Tony had agreed to stop at Wellers’ Rock when we drove past. Well, I’m sorry to say, it’s not a very impressive place—really only a rocky bump in the ground beside the road. But I got photos of it and the plaque that’s there. I managed to get a bit of a collection of Weller-stuff while there.
Our first official stop on the tour was at the headland of the peninsula at the Albatross centre. There were very few albatrosses to see (one tour guide reported seeing one return to feed the chick that is being raised there) but we did get to see quite a few other sea birds where they were feeding and roosting.
We then headed off to the far side of the peninsula headland and onto private property to see the penguins, sealions and seals. And we were blessed all round. The weather remained perfect for a start. It got colder as the sun went down, but was mostly still and clear. As we arrived on the beach where the penguins and sealions lived, we were able to watch three yellow-eyed penguins advancing up the beach—apparently a pretty rare occurence where we saw them. But just as they were getting onto ‘dry’ sand, a sealion we hadn’t seen off to our right jumped up and chased them off! Tony said he’d never seen that before; sealions and penguins generally co-exist virtually ignoring each other.
So, with the penguins beating a very hasty retreat back into the surf, we turned our attention to the gang of sealions lounging/sleeping a bit further down the beach. They were an indolent lot, but a couple of the males were having a bit of a play so I’ve got some ‘action’ photos. We left them to their reverie and headed down to the blind to watch the penguins coming in to roost in the main return location. I’ve managed to get some pretty good photos of these lovely little birds, but most of them were at the extremity of my telephoto capabilities, so the quality is not great.
Penguins are not hugely active when they return to sleep so we headed back up the beach. The sealions were also still relaxing luxuriously. However, just as we got to the bit where we were to leave the beach one of the three penguins we’d seen first had screwed up the courage to try to make it past the sealion again. He/she got quite a way up the beach before the sealion woke up and was then committed to a scramble up the beach and onto the headland when the sealion charged over. And did he/she scramble! Made it safely and scurried off up the headland into the low bush there.
We then climbed up the steep headland and down the other side to visit the breeding site of the fur seals. It was almost exclusively seal pups awaiting the return of their mother (one pup per seal); the male seals are apparently on the west coast at this time of year, taking no part in raising the young. I got some lovely shots of baby seals, including a couple of them playing in a large rock pool. We also got to see an albatross gliding over the ocean surface while we were visiting the seals.
The trip home was completed in the dark and the whole day was ended with a real sense of satisfaction. I simply couldn’t have had a better day for the tour and it was wonderful to see these animals at such close quarters in the wild.`The day was finally capped with a drink with another conference colleague and her husband at a bar in town.
I really enjoyed my visit to Dunedin. I met really nice people both at the conference and in Dunedin, I had a rewarding experience at the conference, and I really enjoyed sight-seeing in and around Dunedin. I really couldn’t ask for more.
