After our fantastic day exploring the landscape and flora of Milford Sound we were off to discover the fauna of the East Coast. We drove 4 hours across the lower southern island to Dunedin. A medium sized collage town... it reminded Derick and I a lot of Columbia. And while out accommodations were adequate they were not fantastic so I wont give them a shout out... but the place we ate for lunch was AMAZING! We ate at a little place called the Governors Cafe... started by a collage drop out it became ridiculously successful and still is, it was hard finding a table at 1:30 in the afternoon! I had the special of the day mushrooms with toast (but it sounded fancier on the menu) and it was INCREDIBLE!!!! And of course like everything else in New Zealand the food was very fresh and it looked as if the menu changed with seasonal availability... sigh I love New Zealand.
ANYWAY so after lunch we went back to our place to get ready for our wildlife tour... Here is the thing I am not a big fan of other people planning stuff for me, thats why I do all the research and plan my own trips. And I don't like tours... BUT in this one instance I decided it would be a good idea because... there was so much wildlife to see and we only had one afternoon, alot of the good places to see penguins are on private property and the tours get permission to go & I didn't want to get trampled by a Sea Lion! So I emailed around asking for recommendations for the best tour... we were told by several locals to go with Elm Wildlife Tours. And I am really glad we did. Our guide was SUPER knowledgeable, he had a degree in zoology. This company is all about preserving the animals habitats, and has even been helping reestablish native plants in areas by the beaches to create more penguin habitat.
First stop was the Albatross Colony... not really my thing but they were HUGE... we only saw them flying and they look like a normal bird in photos... but they were massive. I would not have gone here if it wasn't on the tour... if you really like birds then sure... but I thought it was just okay.
Oh yeah, but the tour people did give us some pretty sweet binoculars... I was excited!
This is our second and final stop, on one half of this little peninsula there are New Zealand Fur Seals and on the other half there are Sea Lions and Penguins. We had to drive through like 5 peoples land to get out here and go through locked gates... Definitely could not have gotten here on our own... and they had some pretty sweet blinds built so we could view the animals without disturbing them... but the landscape reminded me of what I would imagine Scotland would look like... I LOVED IT
There were about 20 people in our group but when we got here we broke into two groups (we had two guides) so we only had 10 people in one group so it didn't feel too crowded. These are New Zealand Fur Seals... they were SO CUTE... these first two are both about a year old and the last one is maybe two... cause I am an expert and seal age... no the guides told us!
Sheep... there are SO MANY SHEEP! This guy got stuck on the wrong side of the fence... and then a cliff right behind him... and when we walked by a second time... there was another sheep over there with him, both stuck... They are so stupid!
This is a Sea Lion. They were SO SLEEPY!
And on to my favorite PENGUINS!!! We saw a couple little blue penguins in their nests... but we could only really see feathers but then we saw alot of Yellow Eyed Penguins... Since these birds have no natural land predators... they live in the forest... so every evening they pop out of the ocean and climb the hills at the shore... and when I say climb I mean hop the hills... and go to their nest in the brush at the top! And they get hot while they are hopping and need to hold their wings out to their sided to cool off! Here is a penguin egg & one popping out of the ocean!
And going to start hopping!
Where else in the world can you see penguins and sheep hanging out?
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