NZ - Dunedin

And so we finally arrived at my home town of Dunedin. Dunedin is a university town of about 100,000 people and 20,000 students. It is one of the most beautiful towns anywhere, especially on a warn summers day. Unfortunately it is also pretty cold for most of the time.



Dunedin has many beautiful old buildings. Itwas very prosperous in the 1870s-1900s because of the gold rush in Central Otago, and was NZs largest town and commercial capital. Since then the town has declined slowly in importance, and this has saved many of the old buildings from being replaced by modern blocks.

This is the Octogon, the centre of town with the anglican cathedral and the town hall.


We had a small ceremony to christen Hannah at St Peter's Caversham, conducted by Father Carl Somers Edgar.






Dunedin has some excellent museums and at least one working steam railway but we didn't have time to see these. Instead we drove out to the Otago Peninsular for sightseeing and to visit the penguin and royal albatross colonies. This is one for my favorite views from the Highcliff road along the spine of the peninsular. The video looks south towards the Pacific Ocean, then south-west to Dunedin, west to Mt Cargill, north up the harbor towards Port Chalmers, Portobello and finally towards the harbor entrance and Taiaroa Hear. Like Banks Peninsular near Christchurch, the Otago Harbour is an old volcano caldera, so this point is on the edge of the old volcanic crater.



We visited 'Penguin Place' which is a private nature reserve for seals and yellow-eyed penguins on the Pacific Ocean side of the Otago Peninsular. This is the seals sleeping on the rocks





Penguin Place has a system of covered trenches and hides so you can get close to the penguins without disturbing them. In fact, on of the penguins was nesting just 30cm from the walkway so we got a very close view.

A yellow-eyed penguin at 'Penguin Place'


After the penguins we visited the Royal Albatross colony at Taiaroa Heads. The Royal Albatross is the worlds 2nd largest seabird with average wingspan of almost 3 m, a length of 123 cm and a weight of 8.5 kg. Taiaroa heads is the only colony of albatrosses to be found on an inhabited mainland. (see http://www.albatross.org.nz/colony.html)



The colony has about 150 pairs you can see a lot of albatross activity in the air and on the ground.



Watching these birds soar effortlessly in the breeze on their 3m wings is really impressive. It is also very difficult to capture on video.



We also saw a lovely sunset. This is looking south, up the Otago Harbour towards Dunedin.