I have been neglecting my travel posts a bit and our trip to New Zealand has been slowly fading into the past. The memories are as strong as ever and I find that writing about them really makes a grin appear on my face remembering all the cool things we did and beautiful scenes we saw.
On one of the last days of our trip we were in the city of Dunedin and this is famous as a place where one can spot different kinds of Penguins and one of the only places in the world where one can observe breeding royal albatrosses.
Being the admirers of nature that we are we quickly drove through the city, went ooh and aah and headed straight for the peninsula outside of the city.
There we went for a walk to a beach that had seals and walruses (sadly none where there when we were) but the seals where lounging on the beach just chilling. In the beginning I thought one was dead since it was just laying there without moving and with the flies buzzing around and then once I got to close it lifted its head and gave me a warning look.
We had already been told by locals to be careful because they are faster then they look and really have a nasty bite. Never get between them and the sea and always keep a distance of at least 10m (30ft).
Since I thought the animal was dead I was maybe 2m away so I really startled and backed away slowly. (and making shushing noises like a complete idiot)
at a safe distance I took these pictures and upon seeing that I was not a real threat it lay back down continued its nap. (This is how I found out that these animals are mostly nocturnal its apparently normal to see them sleeping on the beaches)
A bit further there was a bigger colony on the rocks and this was also closer to the end point and the albatross observatory. I did not really feel like paying a load of money to see the bird but while I was wandering around on the parking lot I spotted a lookout point with a man and his giant telescopic camera who seemed to know what he was doing (I am slowly figuring out how my camera works but mostly its still auto settings, point and shoot)
While I went to talk to him and he was telling me he had not seen an albatross all day he stopped and pointed. I got really lucky and one of these giant birds of the ocean did his flyby. When you have read my previous posts then you know we have encountered an albatross before but that was just a smaller cousin of this guy (or girl). They only come on land on the cliff behind the lighthouse to lay their eggs (that you see in the last pic) and they are really clumsy on land but all the more graceful in the air.
These animaly have a wingspan of over 3 m or 11ft, now that is absolutely huge and they can soar over the water for hours on end without beating their wings.
The city of Dunedin itself has a nice vibe to it but so does the whole of New Zealand and we had a nice time getting to know the area. We even took advantage of the urban setting to go watch the Star Wars movie.
The only sad thing was that we had only 2 more days to make our way back to Christchurch for the flight to Auckland. This really let it sink in that we were on our way back and that this amazing month really was coming to an end. Most of my holidays are nice and are long or short enough but here I would have gladly added another week or even month.
The nature in this country has left us astounded and amazed time and time again....
I hope that all of you have enjoyed reading up and discovering this country or have relived some cool memories of your own by following these posts...
Do not despair there are a couple more to follow but the end is near (of this holiday at least)