Karitane, Dunedin, Otago Peninsula: Victory Beach, Albatross Center, Little Blue penguins at Pilot Point

We're staying for 4 nights near Karitane in a professor's house with a great view of a beach and headland. The first day we slept in, had a several hour walk along an estuary, headland, and beach, went swimming, and then Rich worked on his talk. 

Jennifer & Rich on Karitane Headland

Karitane Bay

Sweetpeas & Seashells

The friendly neighbor gave us these sweetpeas. The shells were collected on our beach walk.

We ate dinner with 2 Claremont professorss on sabbatical in Dunedin, Steve Adolph (Mudd lizard guy) and Karen Parfitt (neuroscience professor doing research on Alzheimers and proteins) and 2 sailor guests who'd sailed here from Seattle. It was still light when we drove home last night at 10:30, so basically we were out all day long hiking and driving and looking at beautiful beaches, forests, mountains.

Yesterday Rich gave his talk in Dunedin and I just went to the botanic garden. In Dunedin, all the place names come from Edinburgh: Portobello, Musselburgh, etc., but it's a bit jolting, since the places don't match, although there is a lot of basalt here. 

After Rich finished with his talk and post-talk socializing, it was only 4:00 p.m., so we decided that we had enough daylight left to see at least part of the Otago Peninsula, sticking out from Dunedin. The drive is windy, narrow roads, with gorgeous views of sea on either side. It reminds me a bit of Point Reyes in Marin County, north of San Francisco. Anyway, we bought some cheese at a local market and headed out to Victory Beach alongside an estuary. From the car park, it was about a half hour walk beside sheep pastures and over stabilized dunes to a big empty beach with blue water and crashing waves. We walked to the north end of the beach and saw some fur seals and possibly a sea lion. 

Sheep on the walk out to Victory Beach

Victory Beach, Otago Peninsula

Then we walked back, drove to the end of the peninsula to Taiaroa Head to the Albatross Centre, which the guidebook said was open till dusk, but actually closed at 6:30. Since it was 7:30, we just walked out to the cliff edge and saw tons of seabirds screeching and flying on the edge of the cliff face above the sea. Wonderful views of royal albatross flying overhead and beside and below us quite close. Spoonbills, cormorants, and lots of gulls.

Sunset, Otago Peninsula

Then we walked across to Pilot Beach, where we had heard we might see the little blue penguins, the 3^rd kind of penguin in NZ, since we’d already seen the fiordland crested and yellow-eyed. They were just closing the gate to the beach, so we were disappointed, but the guard said that you could only see them at dusk, about 9:20, on a paid tour and that the other night 140 had come ashore. We decided to make our cheese and crackers and other bits and pieces from lunch do for dinner and paid for the tour. Since Rich had stayed up till 3:30 the night before, waiting till 9:20 seemed a bit of a stretch, but it was a clear night, not too cold, no rain, and probably our only chance. I wish everyone could see these little blues come ashore. We were standing at a platform just above the beach enjoying a gorgeous sunset view of Otago Harbour and peering into the sea to catch the first glimpse. Suddenly a dark v-shaped patch in the water a ways offshore approaches moving very, very fast, and through the binoculars one can see that it’s the first batch of penguins, in a clutch of motion, what they call a raft, and it zooms up to the beach and suddenly 25 small penguins tumble out of the surf and start walking/hopping up the shore to feed their babies in their nest. Enthralling. No problem staying awake. The babies are 3 times the weight of the parents and one nest was close enough to see the wrestling match of the baby forcing the parent to feed him. The parents feed them every half hour. Between wrestling matches, the parents run away for a bit of peace. 4-5 rafts came ashore over the course of the hour/154 penguins in all. One baby positioned itself right along the path where the parents streamed ashore and accosted other baby's parents, trying to force them to feed him. 

We also saw the southern cross for the first time walking up to the parking lot, since it’s been foggy or too light to see stars. Very hard to stay awake on the sharp curves driving home, but well worth staying up for. 

Today we’re back at Karitane,our last night here. Rich finished a letter of recommendation, so we’re at the local library for some internet access and then we'll walk through an estuary to a beach. We tried to sleep in, but the sunshine pours in starting before 6:00 and shines in our eyes before 8:00. Doing laundry, since tomorrow we’ll have been on the South Island a week, and it’s our last night in this house. Tomorrow we drive north up the coast to Christchurch and stay with friends from David Rankin’s lab in Edinburgh and Rich gives a talk on Monday. We also need to plan the rest of our vacation and book the ferry and hostels until we return to Auckland next weekend.