Otago Peninsula and the Catlins

Over the last two days, I have had a chance to get up close and personal with some of New Zealand's famous wildlife -- on the Otago Peninsula, just south of Dunedin, as well as in the Catlins, a stretch of land consisting of rainforests and beautiful coastline stretching from south of Dunedin to north of Bluff (the southernmost point of South Island). It mostly stretches along the Catlin River, hence the name. Both areas are rich in wildlife, and I got to see some yellow-eyed penguins (the rarest species of penguins in the world), sea lions and fur seals.
I went to the Otago Peninsula first. It was on the Elm Wildlife Tour, a nationally acclaimed wildlife tour, and very highly regarded. I waited for pick-up at the Dunedin Visitor Center at the Octagon, and the small van with 'Elm Wildlife Tours' printed on the side pulled up. A very cute guy with long hair got out and took our tickets, and allowed us on board. He then introduced himself -- he was Tom and the man driving the van was Shaun. They'd be our guides for the day.
The van pulled out of the city center, and went to the northern bypass connecting the two ends of Dunedin around the harbor. We drove past the harbor, the blue waters glittering, even though it was a terribly overcast day.
We passed Anderson's Bay, and moved onto Highcliff Road. It was, as the name suggested, extremely steep and on a high cliff. The sharp drop to the harbor provided some extremely stunning views. We even actually passed 27 McKerrow St, where I had unwittingly based Brendon McCarthy (the protagonist in my book), without even knowing whether the address actually existed. Eerily enough, the view from the neighborhood of the house was exactly as I'd envisioned it. However, the house was not as I'd created it (that would've been really creepy!).
As we drove along, the rain started pelting down. It looked dark and stormy outside as we passed the last inhabited part of Dunedin, and onto Otago Peninsula. We went past green hills dotted all over with sheep. Tom pointed out various plants and animals and birds to us as the van drove through the landscape. "You might notice a strange woolly animal bouncing along the slopes," he said, with a straight face. "It's called a sheep. There are 40 million of them right now in New Zealand -- 10 sheep to a person. But there were more last month -- 90 million." They were slaughtered for the upcoming Christmas, he explained. He also said that if the sheep had an uprising, they could easily overpower the people. "But no worries there," he said, "They have bred themselves into stupidity. They are extremely dumb animals."
After this little discourse on sheep, we reached the Royal Albatross Center, driving along fantastic coastlines and past Port Chalmers, the deep-water port of Dunedin. We got off, and waited for a long time, shivering in the cold and the rain, waiting for an albatross to appear. But none did -- they can't fly without the assistance of wind, and that day was particularly windless. While we waited, Shaun told us something about albatrosses. They live to an age of approximately 40 years, he explained. They tend to mate for life, and take care of their chicks for a whole year. They then spend years at sea, and then come back to raise more chicks. If one parent dies, the chick tends to die too, for albatrosses have to go to sea at least once in two days, and they do this in turns. However, if one parent is dead, then there is no one to take care of the chick for a day, and it dies too.
When no albatrosses appeared, we returned to our van, and drove to another place on the Peninsula. It was a deserted stretch of land, and Tom explained that it belongs to a farmer who lets the folks at Elm conduct tours there. The cliffs there, said Tom, are a haven for yellow-eyed penguins and fur seals, and sometimes some sea lions appear too.
Our group separated into two, and our halved group followed Shaun down the first hill. It was the most desolate, deserted and beautiful stretch of land I've ever seen. The cliffs sloped down sharply to the ocean, and while on one stretch there was a bit of a beach, the other led down to rocks. It was to this cliff that we made our way.
The climb down was treacherous, made even more so by the slippery grass because of the rain. But we made it down in one piece (I wouldn't say safely because some people slipped and fell). And that was when we saw the fur seals. There were scores of them, lounging in the rocks, playing with their pups, fighting over territory, swimming in the rock pools, bouncing on the waves, or just sleeping. They were adorable, and there were so many of them! We looked at them from a wooden hide, and took photographs while Shaun explained their habits and lifestyle. It was amazing.
Next, he took us back up the cliffside -- a climb that nearly made me collapse from lack of oxygen -- and down the next cliffside. This one had a longer path, and halfway down, we spotted -- yellow-eyed penguins! There was one, basking on a rock. He didn't seem unduly nervous to see us, something that Shaun told us was quite rare. There were two more a littel further down, one of which was a young penguin, and one seemed to be its mother. We watched the two for a while -- the mother was preening her feathers with wax, while the child lay on a rock -- and moved on to the beach at the bottom of the cliff.
The beach was made of clean, pristine white sand with ribbons of kelp draped across occasional rocks. It was hard to see in the howling wind and the pouring rain, but the beauty took my breath away nevertheless.
We saw a sea lion make its way to the sea. It would move a bit, stop, then move a bit again till it reached the water. Shaun explained that this was because it got overheated while moving along, and would stop to cool down. We watched it for a while and then moved on to another
cliff, to go to another wooden hide. From here, we watched the first yellow-eyed penguin come ashore. One minute it wasn't there, the next it was, rising from the waters like Venus. It waddled forward, stopped for a while, then waddled forward again until it reached the bushes on the cliffs. From here on, it hopped forward and upward till it disappeared into the bushes. While this was happening, two more penguins came ashore, but these didn't seem to be in any sort of hurry
to go to their nests.
Shaun took us further ahead to another hide, and here we saw furry brown baby penguins, which hadn't molted even once. They were adorable (although they were almost as big as their parents). When their two parents met, they squawked loudly. That's why they're called 'hoiho',
explained Shaun -- 'hoiho' means 'noise shouter' in Maori. The birds always screech when they meet their partners at the end of a day of fishing. We watched the penguins for a while more, and then turned back. It had been a most magical day.
The sun was still up by the time we were on our way back -- almost 9:45pm -- and I could feel myself start to drift off on the way back. It had been a long day! But one that I would remember forever and ever. It was a magical day.
The next day, I was headed off to the Catlins. The Catlins is a stretch of unspoilt beauty of rainforests and wild bush stretching roughly between the Otago Peninsula and Bluff. For the tour, a small van with 'Catlins Coaster' written on it pulled up next to my hotel, and a man
called Jamie picked me up. There were a total of 9 passengers in the van. We were headed to Invercargill, where most of the passengers would depart for a ferry to Stewart Island, and the rest of us would head off to the Catlins.
Invercargill is the southernmost city in New Zealand. It is a small city, fairly easy to navigate with small buildings and straight roads. We pulled up next to the SOuthland Museum, where I saw that the famous 125-year-old Tuatara, Henry, was on display. I went in immediately to
see him.
He was there, sure enough, basking on a rock inside a large glass tank. He looks like an ugly lizard -- all tuataras do -- but they are actually direct descendants of the dinosaurs. They are not lizards at all. Neither are they reptiles, apparently. I read Henry's history with great interest. Apparently he had been very ferocious when he'd first been brought in, but after he had a cancerous tumor removed in 2002, he has calmed down a lot. There was a mate next to him in the tank, and I read that she has laid eggs, and the museum officials are very hopeful of having Henry's progeny. I stared at Henry. He stared right back, unimpressed. In fact, if I hadn't read that he's alive, I would've thought it was a statue. He was still throughout, not blinking, not even breathing. Only a wobble of his throat gave him away. I also read that tuatara are capable of breathing upto only once an hour! I was fascinated, but had to leave.
We picked up three Swiss girls, and left. There were the girls, me, and a Canadian photographer called Jeff left on the tour. We headed off to Waipapa Point in hopes of seeing some wildlife. Waipapa Point is famous (or rather, infamous) as the place of New Zealand's biggest maritime disaster. There's a large reef there, and it was here that a large ship (I forget the name) crashed onto. 10 men were sent ashore to fetch help, as evacuation was impossible due to the rising storm. One of the men made it to the nearby town of Fortrose, and sent off a telegram asking for help, but it was disregarded, and except for those 10 men, everyone on the ship died.
The beach itself was lovely, with pristine white sands liberally covered in drying and hardened kelp and other seaweed. There was also a lighthouse, a stark reminder of the disaster. When we went down to the beach, we saw a large male sea-lion making its way to the sea. It got there and frolicked about in the water for some time, before finally pulling out to sea. We left, too.
From there, we went to Curio Bay, a beautiful bay famous for dolphin sightings. We dropped off one of the girls there, and headed off for lunch, which consisted of a ham-eggs-tomato-lettuce sandwich, an orange, a blueberry muffin and an energy bar. We ate sitting in the bright sun, with the cool breeze from the ocean washing over us, and seagulls squawking around begging for food. It felt wonderful. I got talking with the two Swiss girls, Rachel and Sandra. They told me about their experiences on Stewart Island, while we all fed the gulls. We even got a huge ice cream from the nearby shop. It was wonderful. We didn't spot any dolphins though.
After lunch, we headed off to the famous Fossilized Forest, a petrified forest on the beach. It was wonderful, for it looked exactly like wood, but Jamie assured us it was volcanic rock, which it actually was. It was fantastic. We also spotted some bladder kelp on the rocks, as well as a young yellow-eyed penguin drying itself on the rocks. When we were about to leave, we also spotted a female sea-lion, which is pretty rare in south New Zealand, as there are only about 15 of them.
We left and headed off to the rainforests. We passed the lovely beach of Papatowai, and passed 'Niagara Falls' -- a tiny 1-inch white water rapid. We all laughed.
We finally got to McLean Falls, a wonderful waterfall in the wild bush. We climbed through a sometimes steep trail through the bush, spotting New Zealand's famous ferns growing prolifically in the wild. Some of them even had baby fronds, the thing that's given rise to the term 'Koru'. When we finally reached the falls, we stopped to catch our breath and stare at the beauty of the falls. It thundered down from a height onto rocks below, past beautiful ferns and bushes and trees, forming a little stream that gurgled away into the distance. Birds twittered in the distance, and I felt serene.
We left the falls, and went to Nugget Point. It's a lighthouse on a high, high cliff. We climbed all the way to the lighthouse, and when I got there, my breath caught in my throat. Down far, far below us the sea crashed violently onto the rocks, forming white foam and spray that flew out for miles. Seagulls and cormorants screamed and flew about. A sea lion frolicked in the sea far below (or was it a fur seal?). There were about seven rocks in the sea below us which looked like nuggets, which is probably how the place got its name. The wind howled around us, and I felt like I might be blown off into the sea. It was absolutely stunning.
After that, we headed off to Roaring Bay, a place so called because the sea made a roaring sound when it crashed onto the rocks. It was a small stretch of beach and rocks between two high cliffs. We waited in a wooden hide for yellow-eyed penguins to come ashore, because that's one of the best places for spotting yellow-eyed penguins. But that was not our lucky day, and after waiting for over 30 minutes, we gave up and returned to the van.
After that, Jamie drove us back to Dunedin via the little river city of Balclutha, and dropped us off at our respective hotels. I was exhausted when I got back to my room. But it had been so worth it! Two days of encounters with the wild.