Diane

Today was a day of travel, logistics and briefings with a beautiful short hike at the end.

We were up early to make our 6am meeting time.  We picked up our packed breakfast to take on our 3 hour bus ride from Queenstown to Buff.  There were beautiful views of the Remarkables (a mountain range near Queenstown) but we couldn’t really see out the foggy bus windows.  There we were in a bus with huge windows going from the seat up to the ceiling and we couldn’t see out!  That was ok since I napped/rested/slept most of the drive anyway.

We have a very good group- we had 10 minutes to take a bathroom break and everyone was back on the bus just before the 10 minutes expired- can’t remember when that last happened on a trip.  They also help get everyone’s luggage where it needs to go- this is actually not quite as nice as you’d expect since someone may take your luggage without you noticing and then you get to spend time trying to find your luggage.

We left the hotel a bit late but made up the time to catch our 9:45am ferry from Buff to the town of Oban on Steward Island.  It’s an hour long ferry ride.  It was a beautiful and smooth trip.  We did hear from multiple people that it’s usually a very bad crossing and lots of folks get sick and throw up.  That’s why it is also known as Vomit Alley.  I’m so happy we had a smooth trip.  It’s important to catch the ferry since it can only leave at high or low tide because when the tide changes the currents into/out of the Harbour make it impossible for ships to enter/leave.

We walked from one side of the town to the other to catch a zodiac to our ship- the Heritage Adventurer.  Of course before we could get onto the zodiac we had a briefing on how to put on life vests and how to enter the zodiac.  On the zodiac to the ship we had a glimpse of a little blue penguin in the water.

We checked in but our rooms were not ready yet and we went straight to lunch.  After lunch we were shown to our room- it’s quite large and has lots of storage space.

Quite a few people were already on the ship as they were on a prior cruise that they combined with this one.

After lunch we had our safety briefing, emergency response training, another more detailed zodiac briefing and a short presentation about the ship.

Then we were put into groups and taken to Ulva island by zodiac.  Ulva island is a predator free island and we took a short walk (about an hour) thru the native forest looking for native animals.  We saw the tiny round Rifleman bird going in and out of its nest at the base of a tree.  

I did see a few native New Zealand birds today on the walk on Ulva Island

After the walk we took the zodiac back to the ship, had dinner, a shower and off to sleep- even though it was still light outside. 

We slept good and woke up to a sunny day with clear skies, Drove on the road towards the Royal Albatross Center(again) but this time we went to The Opera (Ortago Peninsula Eco Restoration Alliance) to go on their penguin tour. We are hoping to see the Yellow-eyed Penguin. We did see a couple but they were in the Opera rehabilitation center. This is where sick, injured, or malnourished penguins are feed and taken care of before being released back into the wild. We did see New Zealand fur seals and New Zealand Sea Lions along the beach where we hoped to see Yellow-eyed Penguins.

Today we took a different route back to Queenstown and ended up going thru lots of farmland. We saw lots of sheep and more shiny, clean cows. Tibor passed the random alcohol test on the way home- seemed kinda odd to check at 2:30pm in a Saturday.

New Zealanders drive on the left side of the road. There is a saying for right sided drivers: “If you’re confused on which side of the road to drive on, put your passenger in the ditch”. This sounds good until you realize you’re the passenger that’s going into the ditch! Tibor did fine driving on the left side but it’s not my favorite to be the passenger and be right at the edge of the road- even when there isn’t a cliff alongside.

On the way back to Queenstown, we stopped at a Woolworths store(Woolies) to pick up some licorice. When Tibor went to pay with cash, it wasn’t accepted. Turns out it was Brazilian currency! I had put our Brazilian currency in an envelope marked New Zealand currency. Yikes. It’s even worse because I purchased the cherries at the road side self-service stand using the currency in the envelope marked New Zealand currency. I knew it was foreign currency since it looked odd but it just wasn’t the correct foreign currency.

Here’s my birding experience so far in New Zealand: Case 1: Find a cool multi-colored bird with a red face, black & white head, yellow wing patches, find it in the Merlin Bird Guide and discover it’s an European Goldfinch- an introduced species. Case 2: Find a cool black bird with a bright red beak, find it in the Merlin Bird Guide and discover it’s an European/Common Starling- an introduced species that takes over native species habitat. Case 3: Find a cool big black and white bird, find it in the Merlin Bird Guide and discover it’s an Australian Magpie or White-backed Magpie- an introduced species that preys on native species. Case 4: Find a cool greenish/gray bird with a yellow face that’s feeding on nectar, find it in the Merlin Bird Guide and discover that it doesn’t really have a yellow head but the yellow is pollen stuck to it’s face. But at least this time it’s a New Zealand endemic bird- it’s a female New Zealand Bellbird.

Odds and Ends:

• Tibor found his noise-cancelling earbuds in his bag- he spent an hour or more looking for them at home before we left but they had already been packed
• It’s been raining in the afternoon- when the clouds come in and it starts raining the temperature drops quickly
• One time on the drive today, we had full bars of service but no internet connection
• Interesting words used in New Zealand- slippies (slippers), plunger coffee(French press coffee), hidden queue(stopped traffic near blind curve), Woolies(Woolworths store), pullie(Pullover/sweater)
• We drove about 460 miles these last few days, used 10.4 gallons of gas and averaged 44 mpg with our hybrid rental car

After a good night’s sleep we got up to have a nice breakfast and went back to the Royal Albatross Center for our Albatross tour.  Our tour was booked for 1pm since I expected we’d sleep in and take lots of photos on the way to the center.  We got up regular time and didn’t stop for photos and got there about 10:15am just when the center opened. We were able to change our tour to 11:30am.  That still gave us plenty time to browse the shop and photograph the Red-billed gulls which are prevalent in Dunedin but are declining elsewhere. They are called Silver Gulls in other areas.

We saw some (5 or so) Northern Royal Albatross on the nest but none flying until our guide took us to her secret spot- the fort observation room.  There we saw one soaring back and forth- so very amazing- they look incredible as they fly.  They have an 11-12 foot wing span and are very efficient flyers.  They land on land once every two years to mate and raise a chick.  Otherwise they fly the southern oceans and once in a while, when they are tired, they land in the water to rest.   They can fly over 80,000 miles a year, which is over 3 times around the earth.

After getting back to Larnach Castle and resting a bit, we went to High Tea at the castle.  It was delicious.

After tea we toured the Larnach Castle.  A wealthy merchant/banker/politician started building it in 1871 as a grand home for his first wife.  Extravagant materials from around the world were used- including Italian marble, Belgium tiles, Venetian glass, Douglas fir from America, Australian and New Zealand native woods.  It took 200 workers three years for the shell, with European artisans spending another 12 years on the intricate interiors(furniture, wall paneling, ceiling plaster work, tile laying, wood carving)

Sadly his wife died relatively young.   After other family tragedies and deaths, financial ruin, and suicides the castle fell into ruin. It was purchased by the Baker family in 1967.  They lived in it while renovating it into a major tourist attraction.  It is the only castle in New Zealand.

The castle had no furniture when the Bakers purchased it and as part of the restoration, they have purchased items that were originally in the castle or were owned by members of the Larnach family. 

We had more rain this afternoon but by evening it was clear.  Tibor wandered around the grounds looking for the bird with the clear bell-like song.  We suspect it’s the bell bird but don’t know for sure. He was able to photograph the bird making the call and he was very excited.

We had a 4 course candlelight dinner in the original dining room of Larnach Castle. Tibor had lamb, of course, while I had tuna. Since the tuna ended up being very peppery, Tibor got to have tuna as well as New Zealand lamb. He was happy.

We celebrated Christmas with the whole family on December 21st and on the 23rd we got on a plane to Queenstown New Zealand for our New Zealand cruise.

Eric took us to the San Jose airport and then turned around and took Monica and Jake to the San Francisco airport for their flight to Minneapolis.  Now Eric can enjoy a quiet and peaceful home.

There were surprisingly few people in the airports and the airports were very calm but our planes had no empty seats.  We were worried we may be stranded at Los Angeles airport(LAX) because they were expecting flooding conditions in Los Angeles.  We didn’t need to worry- we just had a bit of turbulence going into and out of LAX.

We had smooth flying from San Jose, California to Los Angeles, California to Sydney, Australia to Queenstown, New Zealand.  Funny thing when we landed at Los Angeles airport, the flight crew said “keep your seatbelts on or we can’t taxi to the gate” but when we landed in Sydney the flight crew said “the seatbelt signs have been turned off” and then we taxied about 5 minutes to the gate!

We landed at Queenstown about 10 minutes early on December 25th and collected our luggage and rental car and set off on our 4ish hour drive to Dunedin, New Zealand.   It’s Christmas Day and all the stores were closed and the streets are empty in the towns we drove through.  Tibor did see 2 cafes open and we stopped to purchase fresh cherries at a self-service fruit stand.  There were goats and white dots (sheep) on the hillsides and raptors flying in the sky.  The cows were so clean and the white parts so shiny a couple of times I thought one was a statue until they moved.

We found Larnach castle easily and checked in.  It’s wonderful, our room is in the stables and we have shared bathrooms. To get to our room, we go thru a large red stable door which opens into the breakfast room. Just inside the door is a horse. It’s plastic but every time I see it, it seems real for a moment. Our room is up the stairs above the breakfast room.

We knew we couldn’t have their special Christmas dinner because it started before we arrived and would finish after we had to leave for our penguin tour.  We did get a wonderful charcuterie board and we were very happy to have ‘real’ food after so much airport/airplane food. We enjoyed the special box of Christmas cookies too.

We had enough time to change into warmer clothes and rain gear before driving to our penguin tour.  It has been raining off and on since we landed.

The penguin tour left from the Royal Albatross Center which was about a 45 minute drive from the castle.  We checked in and they gave us some information, we watched a short video and then we walked down to their observation platform and waited for Little Penguins to arrive.  We were so excited when we saw a group of 6 arrive and were even more excited when two groups of 30-50 arrived. We also saw a couple of New Zealand fur seals.

The platform had red lights and some low white lights so we could see the penguins easily but photographing them was another story.  We loved the tour and watching the penguins.

After a 45 minute drive back to the castle we went straight to bed- so far very little jet lag- fingers crossed for the next few days.