7 – 8 March Portobello area of Dunedin, South Island, New Zealand
Having arrived at Dunedin we spent the first two days exploring the area around our accommodation in the peninsula of Portobello near to the town of Dunedin. The garden of our house was full of the sounds of the local endemic bird called the Tui bird. This is a black bird sized bird with a hooked black and white protuberance under its chin. They flutter in and out of the trees and are very hard to get a good look at, what you do hear however is their loud, clacks, wheezes and whistles. Sitting in the garden trying to get a clear shot of them we watched the Silver Eyes and Fan tails whizzing about with the more usual House Sparrows and Chaffinches.
In the evening we decided to visit a local beach, well hidden away down a long gravel track and we arrived at sunset in the hope of seeing the Little Blue Penguins coming back to land, Alan Beach was known as an area for this. We didn’t see any Penguins as the weather turned a bit wet and wild, however we did spend a couple of hours watching four or five New Zealand Sea Lions that were sleeping or walking around on the beach amongst the blowing sand. A magical place despite the lack of Penguins !
The next day we decided to continue exploring the area and headed up along the estuary to the Royal Albatross Centre at the very tip of the Peninsula . Along the way we watched the Pied Stilts , Paradise ducks, White Faced Herons and Black swans, as well as spotting the Harrier Hawks which were everywhere.
At the centre we looked again in vain for the Penguins , but spent an hour or so watching the Royal Northern Albatrosses soaring high above. We didn’t stay too long as there was much left to explore and we had booked a tour here for the day after. So much to explore in this wonderful place.
