Dunedin - Porpoise Bay

Christchurch NZ (not our photo)

It was time for the South Island. We took a flight into Christchurch, and were met by Bruce Graham and his daughter, just a year younger than Anika. Bruce and Alison's parents were great friends, going back to the two fathers playing at summer camp when they were children together. It had been nearly 30 years, but there was no question who was meeting whom at the airport! They have a wonderful house overlooking the city on the side of a hill. Bruce and his wife Reina are such strong, centered people, able to live their lives according to their principles and to what brings them joy. It was an inspiration to visit for the night. They plied us with maps and books and story CDs for McKinley to listen to in the car, and sent us off on a circle route around the South Island.

After a gray day's drive down the coastal plains with nothing much to distract from reading Bartimaeus, we came around a mountainous curve. The sun burst out, and below us spread the fantastic city of Dunedin. It is the city of Edinburgh, street by street, laid out on the hills of southern New Zealand. Some of the streets, because of this transplanting, are San Francisco steep (for much the same reason!) but the architecure is stunning and the city sings with culture. We headed off to a campground on the Otago peninsula, where there were said to be nesting Albatrosses and Little Blue Penguins.

(not our photos) Edinburgh, Scotland and Dunedin NZ


The Rhyme of the Ancient Marriner
At length did cross and Albatross,
Thorough the fog it came;
As if it had been a Christian soul,
We hailed it in God's name.

Way out at the point of the peninsula, there is a sanctuary for Royal Albatrosses. There they nest and feed their young on the cliffs. We got there, and within minutes, saw, wheeling among the smaller seagulls, these giant, glorious birds. They soar like sailplanes, with wingspans up to 3 meters. In minutes, they could circle the entire point.












(our photo on the left; pro photo on right!)

It grew dark, and we went down the cliffs to the side of the ocean to wait for penguins. There was a seal right there, enjoying the attention of people. When it was nearly pitch dark, the penguins returned. Little blue penguins, with a hundred-fifty nests all up the cliff. The babies were now as big as the parents (not large, for penguins, only two hands high) but they relied on their parents to go out and fish, and come back and feed them 'fish soup.' The baby penguins need to grow their waterproof feathers before they can swim in the cold ocean. They walked just like penguins - why were we surprised? It was jiggle, jiggle, waddle, then the babies cried out, keenign cries, and the parents gurgled back. You'd gurgle too, with a gullet full of partially digested fish soup ready to boil over for your baby.
(it was pitch dark, no flash photos allowed, so these pictures are from the web.)



We took a meandering trip along the southern coast, with our end goal the enticing campground at Porpoise Bay, with its promise of Hector's Dolphins swimming in the bay. But first we wanted to go to a hidden cove where sea lions were said to have their home. It was a 10 km drive along a one-land dirt road, between rolling hills speckled with sheep. The beach was maybe half a kilometer long, a pristine sandy slope with gentle waves. There, in the middle, was a great male sea lion who when we arrived, was thinking it was about time for a swim. We watched him stretch up (all 400 kilos!) and walk into the surf, looking remarkably like a lion. Then with a dip of his head, he was under the water, and gone. The other male was a little lazier. He sat up and with his fingered flippers, scratched his belly. Then with a satisfied Ooomph, he collapsed back down on the sand. We were so close, but he paid us no notice. The two females lay like driftwood logs. At first we thought they must be dead, but they were breathing, sleeping, warm in the southern sun. Joplin made a dam over a little stream crossing the beach, and McKinley wrote notes to her sister in the sand. It was a timeless span, just us and the sea lions and the beach and the great Pacific ocean, going all the way from here to there.


(Porpoise Bay campground McKinley photographing sea lions)
Porpoise Bay was lovely, the campsites set among cactus-like spikey plants. We looked for the dophins, and Joplin saw them, but they were not up close and playful as we'd hoped. Surely if Anika had been there, they would have flipped at our feet. But Anika was off skiing in the Dolomites. Such misery!
We did get to see another fantastic site, though - the return of the yellow-eyed penguins. These are much fewer in number than the little blues, but we saw them come hopping out of the ocean as the sun was setting, and even saw one parent do mouth-to-mouth regurgiation with its teenage offspring. Our pictures were shaky, not good enough to share, but thanks to the web, we've been able to supplement our shortages so that you can get a glimpse of what we saw. The sunset is ours, though!