Done-in in Dunedin

The beach at St. Clair is popular with many mammals

We pulled into Dunedin on a crystal clear, sunny summer day. After finding our beach house in the St. Clair neighborhood (I know, they misspelled it) we headed to the beach. Surfers out riding the perfect break, outdoor cafes and people enjoying the day. Picture perfect little beach town. Our plans for exploring this far end of the south island from Dundedin kind of faded away when we realized how sweet it was right here in St. Clair. It was obvious that we were going to be very bad tourists this week.

penguin ponderings

The weather didn't hold of course, it's rather dreary here quite often. Although there are some very good museums in Dunedin, we didn't see them. We did walk through the beautiful old campus of the University of Otago and into the Botanical Gardens, a rather remarkable, large, well-curated botanical garden. Other than that we didn't see much more of the town.
Instead we saw penguins! The nearby, beautiful Otago Peninsula has nesting colonies of the little blue penguin (smallest penguin in the world) and beaches where the solitary yellow-eyed penguins nest. Our first attempt was Sandfly Bay. We dutifully followed the Dept of Conservation instructions on how to approach the beach, where to find the hide to watch them and what not to do. We made our way into the hide and proceeded to watch a great deal of human/sea lion interaction as groups of people walked onto the beach to take pictures of the sea lions. No self-respecting penguin would ever come ashore here. Why didn't these people follow penguin protocol? Struck out.
Earlier that day, a local restaurant owner in the nearby town of Portobello told us about Allan's beach where she's seen both little blues and yellow-eyed penguins. We decided to give that a try the next night. We drove out to the car park and found a beautiful, deserted beach. It was looking good. We found the large rock she mentioned and parked ourselves in front of it as we heard the penguins are near-sighted on land and don't see you. Luckily for us and the penguins, a local fellow came a long who told us to move behind the rock, otherwise they won't come ashore. They have very good land eyesight (can't believe everything you read on the web!). He knew their behavior and told us it's a colony of little blues who come up in rafts of 5-6, lift out of the water and congregate on a flat rock at the waters edge. Then one will make a run for it right by the rock we were behind into the cliffs behind us. By now there were six of us behind this very large rock, it was getting dark and we heard them start vocalizing and could make out the first raft waddling up to the first rock. Sure enough, one made a run for it to the left of the rock, passed very close to us and then waited at the base of the cliff. The others followed. Even in the dusk you could make out their little bodies waddling along, it was so fun to watch. And they are amazing cliff climbers as well. We watched a couple of more rafts come in and called it a night when it was just too dark to see anything.

Crested Fiordland penguins recuperating in the hospital

But that wasn't enough of a penguin fix, we needed to see the larger, more solitary yellow-eyed penguin. We elected to visit a private conservation project called Penguin Place. Their work started on their sheep farm in 1985 where they began restoring habitat, trapping predators and building nesting boxes. As they learned to care for sick penguins, a "hospital" developed and people began sending wounded birds there from around the island. At the time of our visit they had 50 penguins in for rehabilitation including two crested Fiordland penguins that live in remote areas of the very south end of the island. They were brought in starving a few weeks ago, have put on wieght and will be released in about a week back in their normal habitat. In small groups, we then went out on the extensive reserve that stretched out along a beautiful beach. The penguins feed all day and come in at night and the yellow-eyes don't come in together like the little blues but individually. We were lucky enough to see two come up out of the water and travel across the beach and up into the habitat to find their young. I managed to catch this video of one of the determined little trucker as he passed by our hide. It's fledgling time for the birds so the young still rely on their parents for bringing food. The nests are pretty informal so we could see a number of young (almost as big as their parents!) among the bush. It was amazing to see the work these people had done to foster the survival of these endangered birds.

click to expand map

So that was it for being tourists. We rested and relaxed in St. Clair, caught up on life at home and a few movies. Another great thing about this neighborhood: best ever outdoor saltwater pool! Built on the cliff, right by the ocean. Spectacular. A nice ending to our time in New Zealand. It's been a great journey.
We've landed in Brisbane and it's going to be around 104 degrees today. We mailed our cool weather clothes home, we won't need much more than shorts, jandals and swimming costumes where we are heading. We will no doubt miss the cool, cloudy skies of Dunedin as we explore tropical Queensland and the great barrier reef until the end of April.

The beach at Penguin Place

St Clair salt water pool