From Invercargill it was time to start moving back north up the East Coast of the South Island, hopefully in search of warmer weather and a little less rain! On the way to the Scottish city of Dunedin, we passed through the Catlins, a really beautiful area of the country which is particularly famous for the wildlife which lives on the coast - penguins, seals, sealions, and dolphins amongst others. The route of our drive allowed us to stop off at quite a few beaches in the search for some of these animals, but we were only partially successful.
At Porpoise Bay we did eventually see Hector's dolphins, the smallest species of dolphins. They decided to swim into the bay and play in the waves just as we were about to give up and leave - once again I was glad we waited just a few seconds more! And we did see quite a lot of seals around Nugget Point. Although to be honest, after Cape Cross seal colony in Namibia, I'm kind of sealed out now!!!
Although we didn't see penguins or sealions, it was still a really pretty drive.
The first day in Dunedin was absolutely beautiful weather, so we took that as a cue to disappear straight out of the town for a while! With 4 others, I hired a car and headed out to the Otago Peninsular, again famous for the wildlife. In particular, there is an albatross nesting colony (the only mainland colony in the world) and both little blue and yellow eyed (very very endangered) penguins.
We started off with the albatross colony, wandering around the exhibition there and sitting down for about 30 minutes watching a David Attenborough video on the albatross. All quite interesting, so we were ready now to go and actually see the birds themselves. Which is when we discovered that you can only see the nesting area as part of an organised tour - which cost $30. Not exactly what we had in mind! But the guy on the desk did quite helpfully tell us that if we came back around dusk, the birds would be flying around as they come back in from fishing at sea at around that time.
So instead we decided to go down and see the penguins... Which also cost us money, but we were more interested in seeing them than the albatross!!! It was actually a great little trip, with an explanation of the different types of penguin around the world, and of the breeding cycle (they were moulting at the moment, which meant there would definitely be a number of them on shore when we went to look!) Then we headed over farmland to the reserve on the beach. First we walked along the headland, and could see a number of seals on the rocks below, and a sealion on the beach, camouflaged very well by seaweed which it had dragged over itself. Then we wandered down towards the beach, passing a number of little blue penguin nesting boxes. A couple of them had penguins inside, who poked their heads out to have a look at us as we passed. From there it was on to the trenches, a network of camouflaged underground tunnels which allow the tourists to get close to the yellow-eyed penguins without disturbing them. There were about 5 or 6 of them all around a lake, and it was great to watch them playing around. A few were swimming to cool off, and we stood watching them for about 20 minutes before we were dragged off and taken back to the cars. It was fantastic to watch them, as they are so endangered.
At this point we decided to head back aross to the albatross colony, and as we sat having a cup of coffee, there were quite a few which flew overhead as we watched. They are such huge birds it's incredible. It just doesn't seem possible that they have such a massive wingspan. I can understand why sailors used to be so entranced with them!
The next few days were spent in Dunedin, mostly in search of anything that made this city seem scottish... But there's not really a lot! We did find a man in a kilt posing with every japanese tourist for photos (he seemed very put out when I said I had my own scotsman, so didn't need a photo), and we did go to the First Church, the Presbyterian church built by the original scottish settlers. But other than that, the town seems to have pretty much forgotten its scottish heritage.
One of the really nice things about Dunedin though was that there were a lot of old buildings, which gave the place a real sense of history. We wandered round a few of them, the train station, the university etc. The University had a real collegial feel about it (or at least the original buildings did - obviously there were newer buildings which ruined that look!) It was obviously built on the Oxbridge model - even down to the number of japanese tourists snapping away!!!
On my final day in Dunedin, I took a trip on the Taieri Gorge railway. This is now a tourist attraction only, but used to be an important line. The train is made up of original carriages (from the 20s I think) with some posher "viewing" carriages for extra money (personally I'm glad I was in the more authentic ones). The carriages even had open areas at the ends, allowing amazing views out through the countryside. The track went up through the gorge, steadily rising above the river, until eventually reaching the plains inland from Dunedin. There were some absolutely spectacular views, and some slightly scary moments, as we traversed high viaducts. At one point, the track had been blasted through the rocks, leaving only a couple of feet between the side of the carriage and the rock... It was great to get back out of the city and see a bit more of the landscape around.
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