Today marks the last big drive day on the southern island. We loaded into the Super Van and pointed East to Dunedin. There are two primary goals for today’s trip. The first is to see where my eldest child will be spending her Summer participating in research at the University, the second is to see some of the native animals in their natural habitat.

We contracted with a tour company that has private and protected areas where they practice conservation. Once into Dunedin, we headed into the Octogon to find our guide. Ryan was hoping for some ultimate fighting, but is isn’t that kind of octogon, pretty much just the city center. We located Sean and loaded into his van for the 45 minute ride to our first stop, The Royal Albatross Conservation Center. These big birds (3 meter wingspan) don’t seem to be in a hurry to do anything. We did get to see several adults flying through the air, and I am not sure I ever saw one actually flap its long wings. Royal Albatross are very sleek and built a lot like a glider. Several nests were within viewing distance of the observation area with chicks sitting happily waiting for their parents to come home with a meal for them. Unlike the parents, the chicks look like fluffy white footballs and can go 3-7 days without a meal while their parents are out to sea.

The chicks take about a year to raise, and once they can fly they head out for South America. It takes about a year for them to make the trip (our guide told us they could actually make the trip much faster if they flew there directly), but royal albatross can spend up to 5 years without ever being on land. During that time, they are either flying on resting on the ocean. A bonus was to see the endangered New Zealand Shags (another type of bird). The family was able to spend about 45 minutes just watching the albatross chicks sit and the adults flying. Ryan watched a parent land and feed his or her chick. The albatross were very fascinating, but we had several other animals to see. So, it was back into the van and around the bay to see some of my favorite animals, pinnipeds! The first pinniped we saw was the New Zealand fur seal. The rocks down by the ocean were covered with moms and their pups. The pups were running around acting like children while the moms seemed to be telling them to behave. Like the sea lion, the fur seal stands up on all four limbs and walks around. This is in contrast to harbor seals who pull themselves around by their front feet only. We had the opportunity to view the fur seals from two different locations, and were able to get pretty close and get some good pictures. Then we headed back up the very steep hill to get back to the van and head out to the next animal viewing area. Once back in the van, Sean congratulated us on making it back up the hill, the smaller but steeper of the two hills we would navigate today.

From the top of the next stop, you could already see sea lions on the beach at the bottom of the larger of the two hills. Nothing to do but head on down and see what we could see. Before we even made it to the beach we ran into two yellow eyed penguins that seemed as curious about us and we were about them. They just stood in the middle of the path staring at us. Once they moved on up the hill to the nesting sites, we were able to head down and look for sea lions and more penguins. It was no time at all till we found a couple younger sea lions just camped out in the dunes of the beach. It was really cool to be able to get that close to some of my favorite animals. Sean cautioned us on getting too close. Sea Lions are very social animals, and do not have an innate fear of people. Actually, they would love to play with people. The problem is they are 710–990 lbs and people just aren’t that big. In addition to about 12 penguins and several sea lions, including a very large male sleeping on the dunes, we were able to see lots of different birds. It was a few hours well spent, and we successfully climbed back up the hill for the ride back to town.

Once in town Melissa found a great little restaurant, and we had a delicious meal and made the long drive back to our home base to reset for the next day. Dunedin looks like a fun place for Elizabeth to spend the next couple of months. Hopefully, she'll enjoy her work there, as well.