The Catlins - Day One

The Catlins
January 4th

We headed down south to the Catlins area. This is one of NZ less visited areas but is slowly gaining more popularity. It follows the Southern Scenic Route along the bottom of the island. Before hitting the Catlins, we made a couple of little stops along the way.

Moeraki
Our first side visit was to Moeraki where giant spherical boulders can be seen along the shore. There has been all kinds of Maori lore as to how these boulders were washed up on shore. They actually have been eroded from the mudstone cliffs behind - and are referred to as septarian concretions, formed when minerals crystallize equally in all directions from an organic nuclei.
	Further erosion reveals the internal network of veins that you see here. They refer to this as "turtle back" because of it's resemblance to a shell.

*Otago Peninsula* Our next side stop was to the Otago Peninsula, just off the coast of Dunedin. We stopped to visit the The Royal Albatross Center, the only mainland Albatross colony in the world.
	The tours are operated only in very small groups and you must view the nesting area from the hillside, behind tinted glass. Because of this, our shots are once again hard to see. We were able to see them well with our binoculars, though. There were 7 nests in our view - each with a mother sitting on them. We learned a lot about the albatross. They mate for life and stay with their young for over a year before they go off on their own. After that, they take off and are out to sea for 3-4 years. Literally - "out to sea" - they rest on land only to mate and raise their young.
The albatross have a wingspan of 3 meters (~10 feet) but we were not able to see one fly during our visit. They will only fly during very windy days. Their flight pattern is thought to consist of continual passes around Antarctica. They soar with their enormous wings and rest on the water to feed.

I will definitely say that the Otago Peninsula drive was quite an experience. There's not much of a road along it, and we were clinging to it for most of the way.

Nugget Point and Roaring Bay were our last stops for the day. We heard these areas were beautiful - but it never occurred to us that we might also see seals, sea lions and even the elusive yellow-eyed penguin! We were sure surprised!

Nugget Point was beautiful. We were again happy to have our binoculars because there were tons of seals along the rocks. They blend in with the picture on the right - but believe me, they are covering that rock.

Roaring Bay had a penguin hide set up for viewing these little guys. 9 of the yellow-eyed penguins are nesting there this year. We were able to stumble upon three of them coming home.

We made it to Owaka and stayed there for the night.

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