Otago Peninsula

5th February, 2009

The 24km long Otago Peninsula offers a wide variety of attractions, including rare and unusual wildlife, historic buildings, and spectacular harbour and coastal scenery.

We took the “high road” Which runs over the top of the peninsula. Our first stop was to walk down to Boulder Bay.

It was quite a steep decent down to the bay, which was in fact closed due to Yellow Eyed Penguins nesting at this time. The views were stunning though. There was a haze over the sea, on the horizon, which gave the scene an eerie feel. We thought of the early explorers going out in their little boats, thinking that the world was flat, how brave were they!

We carried on along the peninsula stopping along the way to look back on the Dunedin harbour and view of Hoopers and Papanui inlets. We followed a gravel road which circumnavigated Hoopers inlet and here we saw pied stilts and pied oyster catchers, two types of wading birds.

Our lunch stop was at Allan’s Beach, a lovely stretch of white sand edged by dunes. We Walked onto the beach looking at the sea, and were amazed to see a huge sea lion just led on the beach, basking in the sun. We only noticed it was there when it flicked sand over itself, with a big flipper! After a hasty retreat to higher ground, we ate our lunch just watching it lazing about.

We were then treated to a front row view of an Elephant seal and her pup, emerging from the sea, and waddling up the beach towards us. They then proceeded to have a roll and play in the sand, the pup chasing some seagulls, before they waddled off along the beach. Then they were gone, just like that. Amazing. What a way to spend your lunch break!

After lunch we drove along some gravel roads towards Victory beach to see The Pyramids. These are a couple of volcanoes in the shape of a pyramid, in a wetland conservation area. We had a stroll along a well marked path, climbed one of the pyramids for a great view of the surrounding area, and then headed back to the car.

Back on the main road, we drove to the prominent Taiaroa headland at the mouth of the Otago Harbour, which is home to the worlds only mainland Royal Albatross colony.

We were there at about 6pm when the birds were coming in to roost for the night. The sky was full of huge birds with massive wing spans. As we were stood on the edge of the cliff they seemed to pass just in front of us, although taking a photo of them was not an easy task . It was really windy on the headland, and the Shearwaters were having trouble coming in to land on their cliff-side homes. These are the only conditions to see the Albatross fly as they are so big, they need the weather to be windy so they can ride the therms.

The climax to our day was yet to come. We left the birds circling around overhead, glad to get out of the blustery conditions and drove around to Penguin Place.

This is a private reserve set up on farmland, in an effort to save the world’s most endangered penguin from extinction. The Yellow Eyed Penguin is only found on the Otago Peninsula. We were able to visit a working conservation programme and witness undisturbed activity at close range, through a unique system of hides and tunnels.

We had a short lecture on the penguins and then we were taken in a minibus down to the reserve . The adult penguins come in from the sea and make their way up into the native bush where they have left one chick hidden in the undergrowth, whilst they have been fishing all day. Their habitat has been destroyed as the native bush has been cleared away from the beaches, and the penguins, being very shy will not come onto the beach if they see there are humans.

We were shown into a series of hides where we could see the chicks waiting for their parents. They were all fluffy. A couple of penguins came in from the sea whilst we were there. We were very privileged to see them.

It was the perfect end to a perfect day.