In the morning we wandered around admiring Dunedin’s beautiful old buildings including the railway station. We broke for a snack at the markets near the station which sold many home-made goodies, savoury and sweet.
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- Dunedin Railway station is famous for its Victorian architecture.
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- Dunedin Railway station is famous for its Victorian architecture.
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- Dunedin Railway station is famous for its Victorian architecture.
In the afternoon (yes, a strange time to start), we were picked up to go to the Royal Albatross Colony … it’s called that because the birds are Royal Albatrosses … and not because the Colony is under the patronage of some Royalty.
The colony is located on Otago Peninsula not too far from Dunedin. Silly me … I expected these lots and lots of these birds perched on the hillslopes, with wingspans averaging 3 metres. Like a big-bird version of the gannet colony on Auckland’s west coast. Err … hello, they’re an endangered species … so the reality was that we huddled into an observatory to get glimpses of them in the long grass.
The peninsula is also home to other creatures and we made various stops (by van and then trotting uphill and downhill) to spot them as well … birds of various kinds, penguins, sea lions and seals. To be honest, the wildlife wasn’t as plentiful or visible as Kangaroo Island off the coast of South Australia.
We finished after 9pm back in Dunedin after a cold, tiring but worthwhile excursion.
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- On Otago Peninsula. Beautiful? Actually, like most of New Zealand, it is largely deforested (of its native bush) to make way for farmland.
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- Bird-spotting on the way to the Royal Albatross colony.
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- What a scenery! This is from the Royal Albatross observatory.
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- What a scenery! This is from the Royal Albatross observatory.
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- Can’t remember what these birds are.
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- Albatross taking flight.
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- Albatrosses inflight.
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- Albatross nesting … they’re pretty hard to spot.
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- Albatross (red) vs Human (white) and others.
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- Beautiful bay where we spotted penguins.
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- Penguin tracks.
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- King of the hill.
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- King of the cliff?
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- Penguin amongst the sheep.
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- Penguin in the paddock.
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- Penguin in the paddock.
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- Penguin in the sunset.
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- Penguin in the grass near the beach.
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- It’s getting cold and dark. .eal or sea lion?
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- It’s getting cold and dark. .eal or sea lion?
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- I love seeing seaweed swirling in the heavy sea.
