Otago Peninsula: Penguins and Amazing Scenery (6.3.2014)

Leaving the rather unexciting city of Dunedin, we went to the Otago Peninsula for a day trip. It is about 30 minutes out and has some nice reserves, an albatross watch point and the yellow-eyed penguin conservatorium. The conservatorium being our first destination.

I wish I could upload all the pictures we made. The scenery out there was nothing short of stunning. We had a sunny day with little wind and hardly any clouds. The sun glistening off the waves while we drove along the coastline. Beautiful! Sadly, although we tried, pictures never really quite capture the scenery and we did not want to see where we are all the time through a lens.

We made our way first to the conservatorium, where we found out about the purpose of the conservatorium. The yellow-eyed penguin is a very rare and endangered species of penguin that only breeds in New Zealand. They are actively being protected as they suffer greatly from pressures, such as loss of habitat, disturbance by humans and mammals introduced by man to NZ and to round things off the recent increase in ocean temperature has caused a shortage of feeding grounds for them. This, understandably, has created critical situations lately in that the penguin hospital has about 60 penguins in care (usually at most 15 to 20).

The guys at the conservatorium did a good job of explaining to us how to approach penguins (just don't. 100 m away minimum) and why (they think you are predators and are then stuck in open ground, easy prey for sea lions), while at the same time letting us appreciate the area, learn about the yellow-eyed penguins and take pictures.

On our way back from the reserve, we wanted to go for a little walk, so we chose the nearby Okia Reserve for a walk. It features everything you really want: Hills, cliffs, all overgrown by vegetation and finally at the end of it, a sandy beach. Of course, at the first sight of the sun, may entire face burnt up and I now look like one of those idiots where the entire face is read except the part where my sunglasses were ;)

After this nice little 3 hour walk (we got lost, otherwise it would have been more like 1 1/2), we made our way back to Dunedin for an event of a different type. There is a man known as the "Hairraiser" who offers several different types of tours of the horror kind around Dunedin. We went on the "Ghost tour". We thought it would be like a spoof horror show, but it was in fact very, very cool. Not unlike the "Nachtwächter tour" in Würzburg, he showed us around Dunedin, but instead he took us to the dirtiest, creepiest back alleys of town and told us the most famous stories of Dunedin murders. At one point, we were in an old second world war bunker 5 meters below the city library (?!?). An unexpected, but very cool experience. We rounded it off with a glass of a whiskey of his choice and afterwards went with an American couple for a few beers. Enjoyable time was had and fun all round.

Tomorrow, we are off to Te Anau. We heard so many things about the region that we are very excited. The weather is supposed to be sunny at least two of the days we're there, the other one will have a light drizzle, so it sounds perfect, given people told us, it rains there most of the time. Let's hope it stays that way and we'll have more exciting pictures to show you :).

Paronama from Otago Peninsula onto the mainland (Click on the picture to enlarge it)

A yellow-eyed penguin

A seal getting lost on the road (apparently it's common)

Okia Reserve: View from the hill called "The Pyramid" (Click on the picture to enlarge it)

Walking along the beach of the Okia Reserve