Load of Balls
Trip Start
Oct 15, 2007
1
75
97
Trip End
Aug 24, 2008
Moeraki,
New Zealand
Thursday, March 13, 2008
The South Island of New Zealand is home to an extremely rare species of penguin called the yellow-eyed penguin. It is only found in New Zealand. They are quite large, as penguins go, at around 75cm long. They have pale yellow eyes, hence the name, and a brighter yellow band running from its eyes around the back of the head. With an estimated population of just 4000, they are listed as endangered and are considered to be one of the world's rarest penguin species, a situation not helped when a disease similar to diptheria in humans killed off 60% of the population in spring 2004. They are also thought to be the most ancient of the living penguin species. So, quite special then.
We stopped at the amusingly named "Shag Point" and found some fur seals, but there was no sign of any penguins. We walked out to a little bench on the headland and watched for a while, peering with binoculars at penguin shaped objects until we finally had to concede that they were just rocks.
Then...
Waddling and hopping up the beach was a penguin. It was quite some distance away, but it was definitely a yellow-eyed penguin. After some time, another came along. We took some photos and watched them make their way into the undergrowth and off to their burrows.
As we rejoined the highway, we noticed an oncoming police car. Unfortunately, the car behind us that overtook us in a highly suspicious manoeuvre at high speed didn't. Soon after, we were overtaken by the police car which had U-turned behind us. Not long after that, we passed Mr. Suspicious-Overtaking-Manoeuvre, now stationary at the roadside, in the company of the copper, who pointed us out as we drove past. Ha ha.
Excited by our penguin spotting success, we decided also to visit a small reserve at Moeraki lighthouse. The lighthouse turned out to be a long way down a very dusty track, so having got there, the van was covered in dirt. This was its default state, but we had just washed it the day before.
We walked down to the hide at the reserve and settled in to watch for penguins. The reserve had been set up by Bob and Janice Jones, who were the lighthouse keepers at the time. They had found a few yellow-eyed penguins injured on the local beaches over the years, named them Patch, Diesel Dick, Sweet-Pea and Cuddles (have a guess at which Jones was responsible for which name...) and nursed them back to health, releasing them at the sheltered beach near the lighthouse. Gradually, it became clear that penguins were coming back to the beach to nest and mate. Now, the colony at Moeraki lighthouse is one of the biggest in the world, despite there having been no yellow-eyed penguins there originally.
We didn't have to wait very long for some more penguin action. A steady stream of penguins were hopping up the beach towards the undergrowth, with several of them taking the slightly suicidal approach of taunting the large grumpy fur seals on their way past. Not to be recommended, but they all seemed to get away with it.
We got chatting to a young English couple, who were very excited when Kirsty pointed out the penguins to them. After a while they left and shortly afterwards, we decided that we should also head off and find somewhere to camp for the night. As we left the hide, Kirsty stopped dead, motioning Jacob to do the same. A yellow-eyed penguin was sitting by the fence, about as close to us as you probably are to your computer as you read this.
These are the incredibly reclusive, shy, "you won't see them close because they'll hear you and hide before you get anywhere near them" yellow-eyed penguins. Ha.
The penguin quite happily sat around posing for photographs and preening for quite a while. We left it to it and went back to the van.
We found a DOC site with only a minimal game of "What the bloody hell do you mean?" and selected a nice spot under some trees. Jacob had gone to explore the facilities and Kirsty was sewing the front seat cover back together when the young couple from the penguin reserve pulled up.
"Hello again, did you see any more penguins?" they asked.
"Umm, well, now you come to mention it, there was one...closer to us than you are now...sorry".
They were a little bit jealous.
We chatted to them for quite a while before noticing a fallen log that looked a familiar sort of wood. Some rummaging around in the rotting timber revealed that our identification was correct; this was Huhu Grub territory. Much to the initial horror and gradual fascination of Emily and Will, the English couple, we started gathering Huhu grubs in a small bowl. We harvested around two dozen to cook, plus several that we ate as we collected.
To Will's disgust, we fried up some of the grubs as a starter. Emily was much more game for culinary experimentation and tried one, eventually persuading him to have a nibble as well. Both were surprised by how pleasant they are. Emily also tried one of the live grubs, but Will couldn't face that.
After the grubs, we ate up the rest of our dhal and naan bread from the previous evening and stayed chatting with Emily and Will in the cooking shelter until late. Time for bed.
The following morning, Emily and Will had left early, but left us a little note with recommendations of places to visit in South East Asia, as they had already travelled through that way. We made a big pan of scrambled eggs, fried potatoes, sausage and spring onions and a pot of coffee, then packed up and headed back to the coast.
We stopped at Moeraki again to visit the boulders on the beach. These are unusually large, spherical boulders, scattered across the beach. They are what are known as septarian concretions. A concretions is, essentially, a geological pearl. Minerals in water are deposited around something; a shell, a leaf, a particle of grime... The resulting structure is usually spherical and has a composition that is different from the surrounding rock. Usually, concretions are harder than the rocks around them, so gradually the effects of weathering and erosion just leave the ball of harder rock behind. Septarian concretions are a special type which geologists think are formed when the concretions shrink and crack. The cracks are then filled in with calcite and other minerals, which form ridges resulting in a ball with a 'tortoise shell' pattern all over it. However they're formed, these boulders are pretty.
After taking several photographs, we decided the vast sandfly population was a little too much to stand, so hit the road again.
