Yesterday was a day of wildlife! Seals, Sea Lions, and Penguins! Oh my! Upon getting up and going in the morning, I set out for the Otago Peninsula right near Dunedin. I stopped at a vista point before getting too far and the cloudy skies made for a nice picture!
As I was driving I went to pass by Sandfly Bay Wildlife Refuge (if anything doesn't need a refuge, it is sandflies...my bites have finally stopped itching after like a week!), but then I noticed the road it was on was called Seal Point Road. Seals? Does that mean a chance of seals? Well count me in! To start I was like, I'm only going to the overlook. But then from the overlook I saw what seemed like a large rock...or was it a seal? Hmmm....better go investigate further. On the way down I'm thinking, "this is going to be horrible to go back up!" because it was essentially sand dunes. The sand was shifting underneath you as you walked. Partway down I got passed by 2 men in orange vests, one of whom was in waders. The other was in loafers...seems like a poor footwear choice. When we got down to the beach the one in waders headed straight into the water. They stayed for about 5 minutes and left. I think maybe they were testing the water at the beach.
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| A sea lion on Sandfly Bay Beach |
Down at the beach, there were so many birds! And I could see the boulders part way down the beach. I told myself I'd walk down to the boulders and that was it. As I was walking along the beach, I came across some weird tracks in the sand. I had no clue what it was from and then the head of a sea lion poked up from behind a log! Alright!
I continued down the beach and found a total of 9 seals and even more tracks. Some of the seals were alone, but two were looking a bit cozy together! It is breeding season and I think someone is going to be having a baby sea lion pup next year! All of the sea lions were sleeping on the beach. I sat down and just watched some for a while. I was the only one down there after a group of 3 women left at this point. As I started to wander back more people were starting to show up. Guess it is a good thing I like to get started early! At one point on my journey back, I had my phone out, taking pictures of two sea lions. Then I sneezed. One of them sat up and looked at me before falling back asleep.
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| The only sign of life came when I sneezed and this guy popped up to see what that noise was. |
From Sandfly Bay, I continued on my way out to the the Royal Albatross Centre. I hadn't decided if I was actually going to the center or not, but it was kind of the end of the road, so I was at least going that far. I made it out there, decided I didn't really need to see the birds, but did grab some food because I was hungry, before heading back towards Dunedin.
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| Highway to the Danger Zone! |
From Dunedin, I headed north. The next stop was the Moeraki Boulders. These boulders on concretions that have something to do with hard formed rock being forming a smooth, large boulder before the earth around them eroding away, leaving them sitting around. I saw similar formations at Theodore Roosevelt National Park in North Dakota. These ones were on a beach, not a long time ago inland sea, like those ones were.
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| Moeraki Boulders |
After a quick stop there, I headed to Oamaru. I had a date with Little Blue Penguins later in the evening! At the Oamaru Penguin Colony, they have a couple hundred burrows for penguins to live in, but the penguins are actually wild. They don't feed them. They live natural lives other than the fact they have houses built for them and they are tagged for research. Little Blues are the smallest penguins, coming in at only 30cm tall and 1kg. Like other penguins, they leave in the morning to go hunting, and come back at dusk. The organization has made this return an event for people wanting to see penguins. They have stands for you to watch from.
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| Two teenage Little Blue Penguins gathering while their parents are away hunting for food. |
The penguins come to shore in "rafts". Basically groups of like 15+ penguins who meet up about 500m to 1000m out at sea and then swim in together. Upon reaching shore, they have to hop up the rocks. Then it was really quite funny because it was like they had to get everyone up to the top and then they'd make a run for it. There were 4 gates for them to go in through, back to their burrows. They seemed to most show up in groups of 10-25. It was so adorable and definitely a highlight of the trip so far! Unfortunately no videos or photos are allowed when the penguins are coming into shore and back home. But on the way out I did catch a few having a conversation outside.
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| Little Blue Penguins after coming in for the night. |
In the morning, I packed up and set out, back across towards the west coast to Mount Cook. This cross Island journey is mainly because of where Mount Cook sits. I knew I wanted to go to the park so the question had been while planning, do I go north before Wanaka or come back to it later. Mainly due to my then deadline of hitting Doubtful Sound for my overnight cruise, it was decided I'd cross back over the island later to get to it.
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| The site of the Battle of Pelennor Fields |
On my way over from Oamaru, I stopped outside of Twizel at the location that was used for the filming of the Battle of Pelennor Fields, the large battle outside Minas Tirith near the end of the Return of the King.
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| Lake Pukaki with Mount Cook NP in the background with a storm coming sitting over it. |
After stopping there I continued toward Mount Cook. When I stopped at an overlook that was supposed to overlook Mount Cook it was apparent that indeed, the weather forecast was correct. It appeared there was a storm over the mountain. This was not good as it was not conducive for my helicopter tour of Mount Cook and Tasman Glacier. I was able to get rebooked for tomorrow afternoon though! I'm so nervous about this! I've never been on a helicopter before and I don't understand how they are able to fly!
Upon my arrival at Mount Cook Visitor Center, it was pouring rain! I ran in and spent the next couple of hours going through the visitor center just hoping for the rain to pass. Eventually it let off enough to at least get out some to shorter hikes. I was able to get out and see Tasman Glacier. And even catch a peek of Mount Cook.
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| Outflow from Hooker Lake |
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| Tasman Glacier is down there at the end of the lake. |
The one thing I did find out today was I couldn't access the Evergy website to play my electric bill! Like, it just wouldn't load at all, and I got and error saying "Forbidden". I eventually had to call my brother and have him log in and pay my bill for me. So lesson learned, set the electric bill to autopay before leaving on a long trip.
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| Mount Cook is just to the left of my finger, right above my head. |
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