Sun 03 Jan 2016 - Rainy day of Admin and the solitary penguin.
As predicted it was a rainy morning and we decided to drive back to Dunedin town and do the shopping and catch up with the world on the internet. Although the wifi in McDonalds wasn't working Glenn managed to hop on someone else's network to do our admin. Unfortunately whoever it was left the building before we completed everything!
We are planning to be in fairly remote locations over the next 3-4 days so we got cracking and purchased our groceries, water on board and disposed of waste for the camper and fuelled up. It continued raining and in fact was quite cold. This prompted us to grab a hot chocolate in a cafe which luckily had wifi and enable us to complete our admin tasks.
The skies were clearing as we left Dunedin town and headed back out to the Otago Peninsula. We drove along the winding coast road and took a turning which took us right over the peaks of the hills and back down the other side of the peninsular. We headed to Okia Flats reserve which had a decent walk to Victory Beach with a possibility of seeing fur seals and yellow eyed penguins. We parked in a tranquil spot opposite a field of cows who were sheltering from the fierce wind behind tall wetland grasses.
We donned our best wind proofs, woolly hats and gloves in anticipation of the wind roaring along the beach and sand dunes. The farm track took us out to two distinctly shaped pyramids, one of which we clambered up and admired the surrounding countryside, sandy bays and green hills. Onwards to the beach through the sand dunes which were protecting us from the strong wind, as soon as we left them and arrived on the beach the wind was whipping up the sand to create swirling waves along the shoreline. We battled on towards the end of the bay where the penguins are meant to be nesting at this time of year. By pure chance we spotted a brown fur seal asleep camouflaged by driftwood and then in the distance spotted…….a yellow eyed penguin. Just the one. It spotted us and waddled up the beach to the sand dunes where it scaled the vertical wall of sand, making one step forward and then sliding in the sand back down. It was difficult watching this poor penguin who clearly wasn't going to make it up the wall of sand. We carried on down the beach and came across a large fur seal laying out in the sand. It raised it’s head, stretched out its flippers and then settled down to continue snoozing.
Yvonne was elated with this outing, two fur seals and one penguin and we returned back along the windy beach, past the penguin which still hadn't made it to the top of the sand dunes, past the first sleeping fur seal and took the path off the beach back to the camper. At this point it started to rain quite heavily and our stride lengthened to get back before getting drenched.
Glenn cooked a rump steak dinner and we pondered over a satisfying day considering the poor weather.
As predicted it was a rainy morning and we decided to drive back to Dunedin town and do the shopping and catch up with the world on the internet. Although the wifi in McDonalds wasn't working Glenn managed to hop on someone else's network to do our admin. Unfortunately whoever it was left the building before we completed everything!
We are planning to be in fairly remote locations over the next 3-4 days so we got cracking and purchased our groceries, water on board and disposed of waste for the camper and fuelled up. It continued raining and in fact was quite cold. This prompted us to grab a hot chocolate in a cafe which luckily had wifi and enable us to complete our admin tasks.
The skies were clearing as we left Dunedin town and headed back out to the Otago Peninsula. We drove along the winding coast road and took a turning which took us right over the peaks of the hills and back down the other side of the peninsular. We headed to Okia Flats reserve which had a decent walk to Victory Beach with a possibility of seeing fur seals and yellow eyed penguins. We parked in a tranquil spot opposite a field of cows who were sheltering from the fierce wind behind tall wetland grasses.
We donned our best wind proofs, woolly hats and gloves in anticipation of the wind roaring along the beach and sand dunes. The farm track took us out to two distinctly shaped pyramids, one of which we clambered up and admired the surrounding countryside, sandy bays and green hills. Onwards to the beach through the sand dunes which were protecting us from the strong wind, as soon as we left them and arrived on the beach the wind was whipping up the sand to create swirling waves along the shoreline. We battled on towards the end of the bay where the penguins are meant to be nesting at this time of year. By pure chance we spotted a brown fur seal asleep camouflaged by driftwood and then in the distance spotted…….a yellow eyed penguin. Just the one. It spotted us and waddled up the beach to the sand dunes where it scaled the vertical wall of sand, making one step forward and then sliding in the sand back down. It was difficult watching this poor penguin who clearly wasn't going to make it up the wall of sand. We carried on down the beach and came across a large fur seal laying out in the sand. It raised it’s head, stretched out its flippers and then settled down to continue snoozing.
Yvonne was elated with this outing, two fur seals and one penguin and we returned back along the windy beach, past the penguin which still hadn't made it to the top of the sand dunes, past the first sleeping fur seal and took the path off the beach back to the camper. At this point it started to rain quite heavily and our stride lengthened to get back before getting drenched.
Glenn cooked a rump steak dinner and we pondered over a satisfying day considering the poor weather.
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| Windswept sand on the wild beach |
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| Yellow eyed penguin trying to climb the sand dune |
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| Fur seal enjoying a snooze |
You are real troopers. Y'all are up for everything that comes your way. Again some really cool pics. The poor penguin and his quest up the dunes
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