We left Te Anu on a rather grey morning, though at least the overnight rain had stopped. I was so depressed by the grey weather, I forgot to take a photo, though the lake is beautiful and our hotel was right on the shore. I shouldn't complain really, we have mostly been quite lucky with the weather. We should have expected rain in Milford Sound, it's the second wettest place on earth, usually averaging 7 - 10 metres of rain a year. That's between 23 and 33 feet, for the non-metric. One year, they had 14 metres - that's about 46 feet of rain! No wonder the rain forest is constantly dripping, and there are waterfalls everywhere.
We passed a lot of typical sheep farming country, with rolling hills
and made a mid-morning coffee stop in Gore. There had been a lot of rain there too, the river was very high and the fields flooded. You can possibly just see the poor sheep sheltering away to the far left of the photo.
The next town along from Gore, interestingly enough, is called Clinton! Before we got there, the rain had started again, but fortunately it didn't last.
At lunch time, after a rather pedestrian drive, we reached Dunedin, and immediately drove out long the Otago Peninsula to go to the Royal Albatross Centre. It was a very scenic drive along the waterside, with lots of lovely views over the harbour.
At the Royal Albatross Centre, we saw lots of things, but not much of the albatross. We had a short film about the albatross, and we could see one sitting on its egg on the live camera. We walked up to the Taiaroa Head Gun Battery where there is an observatory, but we could only see the head of an albatross as it sat on the nest. We were shown various examples of the size and weight of the chick at different ages and learned about the dangers of plastic waste to the birds. The Gun Battery itself is quite interesting. It was built in the 1880s to combat a perceived threat from Russia, and contains the Armstrong disappearing gun, a 6 inch diameter naval defence gun designed to pop out, fire and then recoil back into its pit. It is the only one of its kind in the world still in working order and in its original position, and has never been fired in anger.
We also saw the nests of Stewart Island shags, and a huge colony of gulls.
We tried to say hello to Mrs Gull and the kids, but she was too busy giving them their lunch, so we went off to have ours, somewhat late.
Our bus continued round the headland, up a very steep and winding track, to Nature's Wonders, where we were issued with raincoats to protect us from the mud, got into 8 wheel drive vehicles and headed off up and down incredibly steep slopes to see views and wildlife.
Paul videoed part of our journey, but I was incapable of photographing anything because I was hanging on like grim death with both hands (not to mention pressing my knees on the side and bracing my feet on the floor - I'd have held on with my teeth if I could). We did stop at the top of the hill for some spectacular views
before heading down the cliffs to the seal colony. There were quite a few seals on the rocks below, including some mothers suckling babies.
While we were photographing them, we suddenly had to move out of the way of a very determined seal who wanted to go past. Apparently it is advisable not to block their passage; they might look charming with their liquid eyes, little folded ears and cute black nose and whiskers, but they also have big sharp teeth and are not slow to use them.
We climbed back into the little vehicles and bucked and heaved our way round to the penguin colony. These are extremely rare and endangered yellow eyed penguins, there are only about 400 left in the world. They live on a beautiful sandy beach
backed by an inclined slope covered in wildflowers.
The penguins are so far away that my camera zoom couldn't cope with them; some of those almost invisible specks on the beach are penguins. Though Paul got a good clear picture, the penguin was preening its back, so it appears to be headless!
After our scenic 8 wheel drive safari, we got back into our bus and headed back along the Otago Peninsula by a different route. We had views of the wonderfully folded landscape of the peninsula
the harbour
and this rather strange art installation; some of my family may find it more interesting than others! Why there should be a set of large teeth here I have no idea!
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