Links golf and town visit and albatrosses and penguins

Aim today was to spot the magnificent albatrosses but first Kalle and Oskar tried the challenging St Clair links golf course and we girls headed downtown Dunedin.

Happy golfer, 76 not bad!

When you are backpacking like us there is no use shopping because we cant carry any more things, so that takes a bit off the edge of a city visit… We visited the Otago museum and saw stuffed native NZ animals, so now we have at least seen what an albatross should look like if we spot the, and many other things. On display was also a face exhibit.

Really interesting to see what you would look like if you make one face of your right or left half of your face.
We picked up the happy golfers and hit the by the sea road, which is literally by the sea, and drove to the Otago peninsula in the hope of seeing albatrosses. Directly when we parked our camper we jumped out screaming “Albatrosses” but after a while we noticed they probably where seagulls…Hm…I had cancelled the tour with the Royal albatross centre since we weren’t sure of being there on time and also the cost for the tour is 112 NZD (650 SEK). Instead we hoped for “free spotting” from the outside area.  You can go and watch the interesting exhibition of albatrosses, sealions, seals and penguins, its for free. They closed the centre and we decided to stay and cook dinner, now the big impressive birds started to fly out hunting for food.

They are amazingly impressive, when you have seen them you know they are not a seagull because they are sooo big. Difficult to catch them with the camera but we got some good pictures! With new after dinner energy next target was spotting the blue eyed penguins at Pilot beach. Seals where lazily lying on the rocks and e got really close to them! Penguins go hunting for fish in the morning and return at dusk. Wind was blowing but we resisted the cold and stayed for the penguins. It grew darker and darker. Just behind the fence where we were standing we saw a rabbit, at least I thought it was a rabbit. But no, it’s a baby penguin, so cute when he crawled out of his hole!
 

Not a rabbit...

A penguin worker arrived and gave us instructions, not to use yellow flash on cameras, that hurts their eyes and also to keep our voices down. Penguins are not afraid of humans but they may be distressed. Almost at dark the first gang of penguins arrived.

Amazing how clumsy they are on land, and they crawl sometimes 100 m to their nest. Darkness and cold winds made Janlert family return to their camper and head for civilization and a new city holiday park.