Dunedin

From Te Anau we headed south and east across rolling hills of sheep and cow pastures to Dunedin (pronounced Dun EE din) on the east coast.  It was raining the whole day, so we didn’t stop to do any sightseeing along the way.  Lunch was at a café in a small town (Café Lola, maybe in Milford) that had good coffee, the food was okay but not particularly memorable. 

From the history of brewing

Dunedin is perched on a steep hill overlooking a well-protected harbor.  Two of the major industries are located right in town, the Cadbury chocolate company and Speight’s Brewery.  We opted for the brewery tour.  Our guide was very entertaining and took our group through a display on the history of brewing, through the raw materials rooms where you could sniff toasted barley and fresh hops (related to cannabis but no you cannot brew beer using cannabis nor would smoking hops give you a high).  They source both their hops and barley in NZ.  The water comes from their own deep well within the building complex.  There is a tap outside where you can fill your own water containers for free.  You go through some rooms of equipment that was in use up until fairly recently and then finish in their brand new brewing area with its stainless steel containers.  There is a second brewery in Auckland that does all the bottled and canned beer.  This one does only kegs for the south island.  And it provides a byproduct of the brewing process to make Marmite!

New vats at Speight's

Old copper vats at Speight's

Since it was my birthday we went out for a nice dinner at Bacchus, second floor overlooking the Octagon in the middle of town.  They had a good by the glass wine selection and what I guess could be described as modern kiwi food.  Jake got the pea and mint risotto appetizer and a double portion of a tuna tartare appetizer, both very good and prettily presented.  I got lamb chops coated with a sundried tomato olive paste that was tasty but almost overwhelmed the lamb flavor.  For dessert we split a chocolate brownie with vanilla ice cream that came with a candle on top.  And a leafy garnish of angelica, something I hadn’t seen as a garnish before or tasted. It has a slightly sweet flavor with maybe a hint of fennel, but the leaves are a little hairy for eating.

A royal albatross

The next day we had blueberry muffins and good coffee at a coffee shop across the street from the hotel. We took the car and explored the Otago Peninsula which runs about 30 km west of Dunedin.  It took us a couple 2 tries to get out of the city, but once we got going the right way around the harbor it was pretty easy.  The road though is a very narrow windy road that hugs the coastline.  We went to the far end of the peninsula first to the Albatross center.  Sure enough there were a number of Royal Albatross circling overhead and a huge number of gulls.  I didn’t do the albatross tour which takes you to see the nesting area but the center does have some educational displays on albatross and other sea life.  Albatross spend most of their life at sea.  These particular ones fly from NZ to as far away as the tip of South America.   We walked down to the public beach where fur seals lazed on the rocks within spitting distance.  We split a slice of spinach tart at the café there before heading a short way back down the peninsula to Penguin Place. 

Yellow-eyed penguins in the penguin hospital

Jake opted to sit on the beach while I did the penguin tour.  There were only 3 of us plus our guide on the tour.  The other two were a mother daughter from England.  The daughter has been teaching science to middle schoolers in Auckland for the last 10 years.  She was about my age.  Our guide was a recent environmental management graduate from the North Island.  He was saving money to travel to southern China before settling into a full time job.  We got a background lecture on the yellow-eyed penguin’s life cycle.  They are not doing well and seem somewhat evolutionarily unfit for the modern world.  They are fairly solitary penguins and have only one chick a year I think.  Mom and dad feed the chicks until they fledge, then the chicks are completely on their own.  They waddle down to the ocean, jump in, and have to learn to fish and avoid predators by themselves.  Once a year the adults stay ashore for a month without eating while they molt.  If they haven’t gotten fat enough before molting they die of starvation.  If it gets too hot while the adults are molting (or while the chicks are young) they die from overheating.  They will abandon their nests if disturbed by people.  They nest under trees and shrubs and will not nest within visual distance of another penguin, so with deforestation their territories get bigger and bigger or they don’t have enough shade too keep themselves cool.  Because of overfishing, there aren’t enough fish in the sea and this year in particular they’ve taken in a lot of penguins that are starving.  Apparently there are several large Ukrainian trawlers that go up and down the coast between Akaroa and Dunedin. 

So there are about 2000 yellow-eyed penguins in the world (they only occur in NZ) and at this particular reserve there are usually about 200 penguins.  This year there were only 3 nests, and 2 were successful.  A bunch of penguins from this beach got eaten by an endangered sea lion last year.  The farm controls rabbits that eat the native tree and shrub species and stoats and rats that might eat penguin eggs.

Blue penguin in a nest box

Male bachelor fur seals chest bump

Yellow eyed molting penguin in the reserve

penguin nest boxes

cage for young penguins who will self-release soon

After the lecture we visited the penguin hospital.  They were looking after about 8 yellow eyed penguins, 1 fiordland penguin, and 1 other species.  I think they were all there because they were molting and starving.  They’ll all be released once their new feathers grow in.  From there, we took a van over the farm to the southern coastline.  They are reforesting this area and there is a beach where yellow eyed and blue penguins come ashore.  They also have lots of nesting boxes for both species.  We walked around and could see 2 adult molting yellow-eyed penguins and numerous molting blue penguins in their nest boxes.  There were also three young penguins who were in a self-releasing pen so they could head down to the ocean when they felt able.

I picked Jake back up and we headed back to town.  We walked down to see the very ornamental train station and then decided to go see “Lady in the Van” at the movie theatre.  It was not crowded, fairly comfortable seats.  We went to a busy Japanese restaurant on Princes St. for a light dinner of a sushi roll and salad.  Okay, inexpensive.  We stayed at a self-catering hotel on Princes St. called Scenic (it’s a chain).  Very well located, nice lobby/restaurant area.  The room had great views over the city and a balcony, not inexpensive.

stainglass window in the Dunedin train station

On Saturday morning the city was pretty quiet and our coffee shop from the day before not open yet, so we went to Perc just off the Octagon instead.  Also very good baked goods and coffee.