Monday, February 27, 2006

Thursday February 23rd 2006 : Otago Peninsula Day Trip



Taiaroa Head


The International Office sponsored a day trip for all of the International Students, a day trip to the Otago Peninsula to take in some of the local natural wonders. I have a map, but I forgot to take a picture of it so I'll post it later. We visited Taiaro Head, which hosts an albatross colony. Otago is known for being the only place in New Zealand with a sucessful breeding program for the Royal Albatross. The Royal Albatross are the largest flying bird, or at least the largest sea bird. I think. Somebody should probably check me on that.


Do you remember the scene in Rescuers Down Under?
When the big dopey 'seagull' is going to land on the little Australian mouse's runway? The mouse is sitting there going through his bird guide, trying to figure out what an albatross is so he can figure out how to change the runway....and when he figures out the albatross is the HUGE BIRD in the middle of the guide that is 200 times larger than anything else? Yeah. They're really, really big. The Royal Albatross has a winspan of about 10 feet.



We didn't really get to see any, but it was fortunately windy enough that the birds did take flight occasionally. See, when you're that big, you want a big bout of wind to help you with take off. Unfortunately, most of them took flight when we had already gotten back on the bus...so I didn't get a good picture.



But the rest of the place was pretty. We got to see seals playing off shore. The problem with them is that the camera is so shakey because it was really, really, really windy.
(Working clockwise from noon: seagulls chilling in a little bit of a wind break; albatross hovering above the welcome center; seal waving his flipper at us; and a scenic picture of Taiaroa Head)







Sandfly Bay? ... that can't be right

I can't remember the name of this beach. In any case, it was where we saw seal close up. We weren't there for very long, however. With many of these little points of interest that we went to, it would take 50%-75% of our time to simply trek through whatever farmland was surrounding the beach to get to the shore. It was also raining for the majority of the time we were there -- which dramatically cuts down on the amount of time I felt like frolicking around and taking pictures.



Like I said, we got to see a seal close up at this beach. I'm pretty sure it's just a plain old fur seal. There was no evidence of a pup or anything -- in fact, the seal was pretty much interested in sleeping. Some people got within what I'd like to call 'petting' distance. They didn't touch the seal, but they were within an arm's length.
(Working my way down from the top: Me, demonstrating how windy it was; a scenic picture of the beach; a fur seal snoozing his way through the day behind some boulders and some of the students getting close to said aforementioned seal)

Besides the constant wind and on and off rainfall, the only other thing of import about this beach was the penguin nests. The penguin 'nests' (boxes, really) are put up by the park to encourage the penguins to mate and procreate and all that good stuff. The adults were off fishing for the day when we visited, so we got the chance to look at the nests upclose. The problem was that the baby penguins were hiding back in the boxes -- see, what you're actually seeing in these pictures is just the doorway. Hidden away under rocks and tarp was a much, much larger box that would easily host multiple adult penguins. In any case, the baby penguins were difficult to see (some people couldn't see them at all) and only distinguished based on their white bits. I increased the contrast on one of the images so you could more easily see the penguins. (nest to the left, improved contrast to the right)



Along the Way
As we were tootling around on the bus, we saw lots of things on the side of the road. Mostly sheep. Lots of sheep. Some cows. And the occasional black swan. We also stopped at one point to admire the Maori Meeting House for the region. I could only get a good shot of the gate, though.
Hopefully I'll get to learn more about the Maori and even visit their meeting house as I continue with my classes. I love the colors they use, though. Just...wow.



Sandymount

Sandymount was our last stop before the dinner bbq, and wow. Was it a wonderful stop. I would have loved to spend more time there, and not simply because the walking to and from the beach took up 40 of our 45 minutes. It was out in the middle of farmland, but you could just tell how the weather was affecting the environment -- the trees, even before we got to the beach, were all bent over from prolonged exposure to the elements. And this was at the top of the cliff. Down at the bottom, the wind was blowing so hard I thought we were going to loose some of the smaller people in our group. It was amazing that the sheep that were in the uphill pastures didn't blow away.
Beyond that, it was an absolutely stunning beach. Just hard to get to and from... the cliff that we had to climb down was really steep. The way back up nearly killed me.

posted by Hoot @ 8:42 PM

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