VictoriaFebruary 25
Since the Countdown grocery store in Dunedin is currently closed due to a rat infestation, we did our shopping at New World instead. That was our exciting morning activity, and once again I discovered some really cool stuff:
Frozen chocolate covered blueberries, strawberries and cherries; chocolate covered marshmallow “fish” and these BBQ rice crackers that Mitch and I are obsessed with.
Not the healthiest of choices I know but hey, we’re on vacation and calories don’t count in the Southern Hemisphere. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.
In the afternoon, we attended the Triple Crown Combo at the Royal Albatross Centre in Taiaroa Head at the top of the Otago Peninsula.
We began our tour with a short presentation and film about the life of the Northern Royal Albatross. They prefer warmer climates rather than their close cousin, the Southern Royal Albatross.
These incredible Northern Royals live 25-30 years and only 1% of the population reside here on the South Island of NZ. The rest live on the Chatham Islands, 487 miles East of NZ.
Most albatrosses nest on Oceanic islands in the sub-Antarctic region. They choose places most of us would see as uninhabitable — cold, wet and wind swept. They spend more than 85% of their life at sea and have the unique ability to drink salt water because of a special gland that filters out the salt.
The albatrosses on the Otago Peninsula belong to the only mainland Northern Albatross breeding community in NZ and have lived here for only about 100 years, hence their small numbers.
We walked up to the viewing deck at the observatory and had a wonderful view of the albatrosses taking flight, in mid air and also saw the babies in their nests.
Testing out its new wings.
From there we boarded a boat to see the bird and sea life from a different perspective. We saw both the Northern and Southern Albatrosses flying overhead, their wingspan measuring over 9 feet long, as they glided over the ocean and soared above the nesting colony.
We saw fur seals playing in the water and lazing on the rocks, their big bellies angled towards the sun for warmth. We saw a shag colony, white terns, red-billed gulls, black swans with red beaks and southern black-backed gulls. NZ has more sea life than any other country. Grandpa and Larry, we thought of you and how much you would’ve enjoyed this day.
(mud-like huts)
The third part of our tour was seeing the yellow-eyed penguins at the conservation reserve.
These yellow-eyed penguins are the most endangered penguin on the planet.
They can only be found in NZ and there are less than 1400 left in the world. We didn’t see any in the wild, but we did at the rehabilitation center, along with Rock Jumper Penguins and Snare Penguins.
released back into the wild tomorrow
The conservation center is doing an amazing job at saving the injured and sick penguins and they are clearly very passionate about these birds.
On the drive home we passed Pineapple Rock and hundreds more birds in every cove we drove through.
The wind has really calmed down and the weather is now overcast, which will be nice for our hike tomorrow.
We enjoyed the evening taking in the panoramic views from our balcony, with dinner and a glass of wine.
