Dunedin
Trip Start
Jan 03, 2008
1
15
47
Trip End
Apr 27, 2008
Dunedin,
New Zealand
Wednesday, February 6, 2008
If it's Tuesday, it must be Dunedin--a small version of Edinburgh! We docked in Port Chalmers where we saw the end point of an extensive logging industry. Logs were trucked in to a prepping area where they were reduced to wood chips in preparation for shipping to Japan for use in making pressboard.
This stop in New Zealand was an exciting one for me. Mom took the day off and got caught up on her writing, while I headed out to the edge of Captain Cook's known world. We were driven out of Dunedin, along the Otago Peninsula, past three beautiful bays to an area where the folks from Dunedin go to get away from it all--and then out along the protected areas at the tip of the peninsula.
At the very end of the peninsula is the only albatross colony that is close to human civilization
Arriving in Port Chalmers
. It is high on the cliffs at Taiaroa Head. The adults were not in the nests, but we kept looking out for them nonetheless. Later in the day, as the ship sailed passed that point on the coast, we saw an albatross returning to the nest. With a wingspan of 10 feet or so, they are hard to miss. They glide on the drafts of air, without flapping their wings. They typically take two years to fly around the world, so the nest has been colonized by two groups that nest in alternate years.I then rode in an 8-wheeled Argo (a vehicle the size of a golf cart, powered by a two-cylinder engine, with 8- wheel drive to aid in negotiating the muddy, sandy, gutted, and generally washed-out path) down a very steep road to the beach to see fur seals and penguins in a coastal preserve.
Only females and their young pups were in the seal colony-the males are around only from October to December during mating season. They were able to negotiate the rocks fairly easily as their back flippers are separated and they are able to use them like legs to clamber up the rocks.
Penguins are nocturnal, so there were very few out in the daylight. We were lucky to see one of the Yellow-eyed Penguins that are indigenous to the Otago Peninsula and are protected in the preserve. Only 432 of these penguins were known to be alive in 1990, when the last survey was done. We missed seeing the Little Blue Penguins, another indigenous species on the peninsula.
It was an amazing feeing to be so far south-and, as our guide pointed out, so far east that we were close to the southeastern-most point on Captain Cook's map-in the bottom, right-hand corner of the map. All of the waters in this area are rich in marine life and twenty kilometers south of us is one of the deepest trenches in the Pacific.
Comments
Dunedin
What a wonderful day - the place looks absolutely beautiful and the narrative is great. Thanks for letting us share your travels - the blog is great.
Mick