High flying, adored so......

OK today we are travelling to Dunedin and leaving the Catlins. As we pass through Balclutha (Bal-cloot-a) the country side changes to that of a river estuary and the pastoral scene is only disturbed by..a Ford Anglia, and a Jag 4.2 litre, a Sunbeam Rapier, an Austin 1100 and an Austin 7 and...
It seems today is the annual British Cars Rally which starts from Dunedin and finishes somewhere in the Catlins so I thought we would use “I’m just sitting here watching the wheels go round and round, I just love to see them roll,” for today’s blog title, but no!
We pass through Milton which is nothing spectacular but the roadside is a blaze of late summer colour with English country garden flowers. The last time we saw flowers like it was at our campsite, and M thought we might use “..in an English country garden” as this was such an unusual campsite in so many ways. But....no.
We are now running up to Dunedin and we have just passed the city limits but we haven’t seen a house for miles or should that be kilometres..naah, for miles.
Dunedin is surrounded by hills and the hills surrounding the harbour were formed by a number of volcanoes. It is the capital city of Otago, the area we have been in for some time since leaving Fiordland. We are heading out to the Otago Peninsula to see what wildlife is present. The guide book says that we can expect to see many wading birds, royal spoonbills, shags, and the jewel in the crown, the royal albatross. Penguins and sealions may also be seen.
We took the high road past Larnach Castle, NZ only castle (a folly actually) and then down to the coast at Portobello, giving fabulous if slightly misty views of the Pacific on one side and the bay on the other. We pass two old cable car carriages, in a garden, a relic of bygone days when Dunedin had a cable car system based on that in San Francisco. We arrive at our destination Taiaroa Head, which has a lighthouse, a disappearing 6” gun and the only mainland nesting habitat for the northern royal albatross. The main nesting area is the Chatham Islands in the South Pacific.
There are apparently 16 nesting sites on the head and we see two chicks, who apparently grow to a weight of 9 kg before they fledge. As it was misty, and the air was fairly still, the likelihood of us seeing the adults was very low. But, we were very privileged to see 3 adult birds and one actually feeding its single chick. There were 17 chicks born this season but unfortunately one of the male adults stepped on a chick and killed it. Rather a tragedy as the adults don’t breed until they are 7-8 years old, and they only lay one egg every other year!
The birds wing span is 3 metre and they lock their wings as they soar for up to 150 km a day circulating the Roaring Forties and circumnavigating the world only landing on water to feed and sleep. High flying, adored they have been signs of good luck most famously featured in the tale of the Ancient Mariner.
We were so blown away by seeing these graceful flyers that we didn’t look for the penguins. Reason: time was getting short for us to get to our motel to wash and brush up before putting on our glad rags and getting to our hosts for “tea”.
In NZ speak tea means supper or dinner, and we are meeting with Phil and Debbie, and their children Luke and Adam. We met Phil and Debbie when we were on Rarotonga doing the cross island walk, and they very kindly invited us to visit them if we were in Dunedin.
We have a very sociable evening swapping stories and drinking wine (well M was since I was driving), and we eventually fell into bed after 11pm after a very full and memorable day.