We spent the night in Owaka so it was just a couple of hours to our next base in Dunedin, the second largest city on the South Island. On the way we made a quick stop in Gore. One of the crew on the fiordland cruise was amused to see the name Thomas Green because there was a pub in her hometown, Gore, named The Thomas Green. Since Gore was on the way from Manapouri to Owaka it was worth a stop.
Dunedin sits on the harbor of the Otago Peninsula which is known for wildlife such as albatross, blue penguins, yellow eyed penguins and the ever popular fur seals.
Penguin Place at the tip of the peninsula is a conservation reserve for yellow eyed penguins on land owned by a sheep farming family, completely funded by tourism dollars. We signed up for their early afternoon tour and turned out that we were the only participants! It was a 90 minute tour through the reserve with a very knowledgeable guide. It would have been a lovely walk even without the wildlife but we certainly did enjoy seeing seals, blue, and yellow eyed penguins.
They run a hospital for the penguins to treat injuries and feed any that are clearly underfed. This is especially important for the endangered yellow eyed penguins. There were currently two penguins in their hospital. Last year they had more than 100 penguins that they cared for.
Here’s the beach that is protected for the penguins and other wildlife
This is where the young unattached male fur seals hang out. They refer to them as the teenaged boys as they tend to sleep a lot and fight with each other.
They have many little houses for the blue penguins to choose from, as well as a lot of land for them to build their own hutches. We saw several tucked away. Some are still nesting and some already have young chicks that they are caring for. The male and female blue penguins take turns sitting on the eggs or staying with the chicks. They follow very regular schedules – off at sunrise and back about sunset. In that time they generally swim out about 25K to the edge of the continental shelf where there is good fishing. They just feed for themselves for the two days until they’ll be back fishing again, except when they have chicks. Then they eat more fish so they can regurgitate it for the chicks back at the nest.
Penguin Place has built a network of trenches to provide concealed access to the yellow eyed penguins as that are quite shy. We did manage to see one using field binoculars.
Great tour and took us right up to check in time for our accommodations for the next 3 nights. As promised the steps up to the house were steep and rather treacherous but oh my, what we found we got there is just delightful. It’s an old house and maybe not in tip top shape, but it’s just beautiful. All of this is $90 NZD per night (that’s about $60USD) with fantastic views of Dunedin.
Thursday, 25 October:
The high pressure system that had been over the south island for the last several days, with its mid-20’s temperatures and gentle breezes, got pushed out by an Antarctic southwesterly last night. Rainy and maybe up to the low teens today. The rain should clear out tonight but the low temps are here to stay for a while. This was a good morning to stay in, catch up with the blog and do some laundry before heading to the railway station. An outdoor picture would have been nice but it was raining like mad when we got there.
The 4 hour Taieri Gorge Railway trip seemed like a perfect activity for a rainy cold day. The train runs on the section of railway that remained after they closed down the Clyde to Middlemarch branch for the Otago Central Rail Trail so we will have experienced almost all of the full Otago Central Railway line – they only take the train to Middlemarch a few days a week, so we will only have missed the 20K Pukerangi to Middlemarch section.
The commentary on the way out was excellent and it was great to enjoy the scenery without anyone having to worry about watching the road or going over the edge on their bike.
There were not many people on the train today but our train manager and commentator said that there are sometimes hundreds of people waiting when the cruise ships are in. It would be a nice outing to see central Otago’s unique landscape.
Friday, 26 October:
Off to explore downtown Dunedin. We’re maxed on museums and botanical gardens so the working plan is to follow a public art trail map that I found online. We’ll see how Dunedin’s public art stacks up against Christchurch.
It tuns out that it stacks up really well. There is certainly more public art in Dunedin, but most of it is commissioned or at least sanctioned, whereas most of the street art in Christchurch had an outlaw feel to it – something someone painted one night rather than a wall where they were asked to paint.
From one of the shopkeepers we learned that Dunedin center city streets are a copy of Edinburgh Scotland. There is an octagon at the center and many of the street names are the same. There are a lot of Victorian-style buildings in the area as well with very few new or tall structures, so it has an old-city feel to it.
It did appear that Robert Burns had a little too much party last night
Finally got a nice shot of the train station too as we drove by
Packing up for the trip back north. Every night will be a new location for the next four nights as we make our way back to Auckland.