Otago Peninsula and Oamaru
We started the morning at Henry Creek DOC Campsite in Fiordland National Park and it was fairly buggy, we experienced worse later, but at that moment, it wasn’t pleasant, because when I opened the door of the van in the morning, sand flies attacked my ankles, so we didn’t hang around. And that was after a mosquito hoard found their way into the van overnight.
So for breakfast, we drove into Te Anau to Miles Better Pies and I had my first bacon, egg, and cheese pie (which I very much enjoyed) along with a pretty acceptable chai latte. And we sat in the sun eating our pies and listening to the couple next to us recount their very rainy hiking experience on the Milford Track.
Our destination for the day was Oamaru, which was a total of about 400 km/5 hours of driving. First we had to cross the south end of the south island to the east coat, which was pleasant with mostly rolling green fields and rural farmland with lots of sheep.
To make it truly a day full of birds, since our final destination was the Oamaru Blue Penguin Colony, we decided to drive to the Royal Albatross Center at the very north tip of the Otago Peninsula near Dunedin. The drive on the Otago Peninsula was very scenic as it goes right along the water, with lovely views over the bay with beautiful turquoise water.
We were fortunate that once we arrived, tours were still available, as we did not book ahead. The only way to see the Royal Albatross is via a tour. Since we had a little time before our tour started, we ate lunch in the pleasant cafe which had several options including tomato basil soup and crumbed sole with fries and walked down to the water and watched seals play in the water. There is also a blue penguin colony at the beach right below the Royal Albatross Center.
The tour goes up a hill past lots of screeching red-billed gulls to a small enclosed building overlooking some of the Royal Albatross nests and for about 30 minutes we watched a couple Royal Albatross sitting on their nests. Also the Royal Albatross Live Cam provides a great up close view of a Royal Albatross nest. Since they were far away, it was hard to get a good picture.
This is a snip from the live cam on March 1. The baby is growing really fast.
After seeing the Royal Albatross, we continued north to Oamaru, which is a quirky town. It’s known for its Victorian downtown and steampunk.
We didn’t spend much time in Oamaru, so I didn’t get a chance to explore very far, but we did eat dinner at Scott’s Brewing Company.
And then it was time to go see the penguins. This was one of the things I was most excited about and one thing I insisted that we include in our itinerary. We did criss-cross the South Island a bit to make it happen, but I’m so glad we did, because it was probably my most favorite part of our trip.
The Oamaru Blue Penguin Colony is one of several blue penguin colonies in New Zealand. Blue Penguins are found in both Australia and New Zealand and they are the tiniest penguins, just about one foot tall.
There is nightly viewing of the penguins returning to their colony after a day of fishing. They come back just as the sun is setting. When we were there, viewing started at 9:30pm, but the penguins didn’t arrive until probably about 10:00 or later. The number of penguins coming back each day is variable through the year. From my understanding January is a time that lots of penguins are returning each evening, so it was a great time to be there.
There are two options for viewing - Premium and Regular. The Premium viewing has a better view of the penguins as they go into their nest area and I did book this in advance. The other really fun part was that as we were leaving, the babies were coming out of their nests looking for their dinner, so they were running around all over the place, which was hilarious and unexpected.
This is a snip from the colony live cam of the penguins going out to sea early in the morning.
Our campground for the night was Kananui Camping Ground, located just south of Oamaru. It was a pleasant and mellow campground that had mostly locals staying during their summer holiday. There was wifi, a kitchen, and coin-operated showers and laundry.
