Dunedin and Otago Peninsula 9th-11th Sep 2010

Day 1

We drove right across NZ today to the far south east, heading to our DOC bed for the evening.  It had a few interesting spots around it so we thought we would head there early and have a look around.

First stop was a nice short walk from the road to Purakaunui Falls.  Very pretty and very noisy.

 

Then onto Jacks Bay and Jacks Blowhole.  We were hoping it was just going to be another short walk, but not so this time.  It was a long and uphill struggle! But a weird and massive blowhole at the end of the walk.  55m deep, 144m long and 68m wide!

Jack’s blowhole was very hard to take pictures of as the sun was in the wrong place!

And then we got to our campsite for the night, and how happy were we.  It was right on the beach and there was only us and another couple to share it with.  Fortunately this other couple were english and up for some company and had set up a camp fire.  So we sat round the fire till late, drinking tea and coffee and sharing stories :)

 

Day 2

We had a good drive to the Otago Peninsula today.  It is renowned for its wildlife, in particular its rare Royal Albatross and yellow-eyed penguins amongst other things.  We didn’t get there till mid afternoon and had a choice of either going to a beach on the other side for the penguins, or go to the peak of the peninsula for the albatross.  We chose the former, and chose wrong :( no albatross, just a very informative DOC centre and a lot of shags (type of bird before anyone says anything lol!).  There were only 15 mature chicks that couldn’t fly on the peninsula, so there was a very slim chance of seeing anything, and we didn’t unfortunately! So off to bed and try the next day.

Shags nesting in the cliffs

Day 3

We planned to go to Sandfly Bay in the morning which was one of the more natural spots that the public can access without tours to see the wildlife.  It was a steep, sandy climb down to the bay and from what we saw initially, there was not a lot of life on the beach.  But as we headed further along, everything started.

There was a big black lump on the sand which Naomi tried to tell Chris was a sea lion, but Chris thought it was dead until it started huffing and flapping around!

Lots more sea lions all along the beach, and continually coming in from the sea, getting ready to feed on penguins later in the day!

We tried to get up to the hide to watch out for penguins.  The hide was up high in the sand dunes.  Naomi was ahead of Chris by about 5m when all of sudden she came rushing back down the hill screaming! As she had got to the entrance of the hide, she had woken a sea lion that was asleep next to the entrance of it (cheeky bugger), it had jumped out at her and they were almost face to face and it was a biggun!  Chris didn’t quite believe her so took another route up, and found a big guy waiting for his dins, and he was not happy!!!

Hiding in the bush

And not happy to see us!

From the sand dunes, we thought we saw movement on the rocks at the end of the beach and had heard rumours of a couple of penguins.  At first it didn’t look like anything was there, then we started spotted dozens of seals, and then, from behind a rock in the distance, a little yellow head poked out! Amazing, we had managed to find 2 of the endangered yellow-eyed penguins without being on a tour :) we marvelled at all these creatures until they were gone, and we had taken a million pictures lol!

(You will need to open these pictures up to see the penguins as they are quite well camouflaged otherwise)

As we walked back up the beach an hour later, there were so many sea lions coming into shore that we were struggling as to where to walk on the beach without disturbing them!

Some mums were having a little fight off for beach space!

The uphill struggle back to the car!

After a fun filled morning, we headed off the peninsula not without stopping to admire some of the views of it, especially the ones looking over towards Dunedin.

Views of the peninsula.

We spent the rest of the day in Dunedin enjoying a nice eclectic city.  We did want to go on the Cadbury’s tour, but they were all fully booked, so we just spent a good portion of the entry fee on chocolate instead! Reminded us of being home lol (that was our excuse anyway!).

Then to the immigrants museum which was actually fascinating.  Especially the room with all the paintings and photos of the immigrants in the 1840s, 50s and 60s!

Chris in a Maori hut!

As it got dark, we headed on the road to a DOC campsite halfway between Dunedin and Mt Cook to give us some headway for the next day.  We ended up spending most of the night drinking tea and coffee in a German couple’s campervan whilst putting the world to rights for hours!

Very very very fun day! Felt like we really had seen something truly touching today :)