February 27 - Dunedin

February 27 – Dunedin, New Zealand

In 1848 Scotsmen from the lay association of the Free Church of Scotland came to the Otago Peninsula with an eye toward building a city as far away from Scotland and their former church.  They intended to name their township “new Edinburgh”, but settled on “Dunedin, which is the old Gaelic word for Edinburgh. In 1861, a fellow named Gabriel Read plucked a precious gold nugget from the Tuapeka River gully, and the Central Otago gold rush was on. When the gold boom went bust, Dunedin could have become a ghost town but instead continued to grow due to its enterprising citizens.  The nation’s first university, Dunedin’s University of Otago was built and industry flourished.

Rick & I elected to take advantage of a "Voluntourism" Adventure to Penguin Place, a private penguin reserve working to help the endangered yellow-eye penguins found only in New Zealand.  The conservation work was started by the owners of  a working sheep farm and is located on the coastal side of their land.  Having been cleared years ago by original settlers for farming, the breeding grounds for this unique type of penguin was destroyed.  Through the efforts of replanting the natural habitat for this unique, shy penguin, the population has increased. We were able to see the hospital on the grounds where baby penguins that have been abandoned by their parents, or adults who have been injured, or are sick are being cared for before being released back into their natural home.  We were also able to view a few of the youngsters who would be heading to sea on their own in the next few days.

We learned that the yellow-eye penguins, unlike their cousins, are anti-social penguins, who like a solitary life.  They come together for breeding and share the responsibilities of raising their young until they are old enough to leave the nest.  Then the parents return to the sea, leaving the youngsters to instinctively find their way to the water, learn to swim and never see them again.  Stats show that 1 out of 4 babies, live to their 1 year birthdays.

The second part of our visit was an opportunity to plant trees offering new areas for breeding grounds to expand.  Through these efforts the hope is that the yellow-eyed penguins will flourish.

It was a lot of fun and maybe someday our grandchildren will be able to visit Penguin Place and find the trees we planted and observe the penguins in the new breeding ground.

                                                        Enjoy the pictures.  Cheers!

You can tell this little guy is an adult because he has the yellow ring around his head.  The babies
won't have the ring until they are 1 year old and have molted for the first time.

These adults are recovering in the hospital from an attack by a barracuda while searching
for food.  They had scars on their feet, face and underbellies.

One of the babies abandoned by its parents.  Either the parents were killed at sea,
or they were starving and left not intending to return.

Two more babies, you can see the band on the wing of one.  Each are banded with
identification numbers to aide in tracking which ones return the following year.

What a view!  This beach leads to the breeding grounds.  The vegetation you can see
was replanted 10-15 years ago.  The hill on the far side is how it all looked after it was
cleared for farming.

You can see how much work has been done in replanting the breeding area.  The
penguins need the security and protection of the vegetation.  The owners have
also built little wooden shelters and wooden observation areas on the hills to provide
access to the nests.

An area already replanted.

Rick did the digging

I did the planting.  The wind can get pretty ferocious coming over the cliffs, so
we were told to plant fairly deep to anchor the trees better.

Ta-da!  We planted a cabbage tree (Ti Kouka in Mouri language) in front of me, and a
Southern Rata by Rick's foot.  In December it has beautiful red flowers, so it's called
the New Zealand Christmas tree.

If you can see on the path by the base of the railing, a baby ventured out of it's nest to
see what was going on.  He and his cousins are venturing out more each day
                          and investigating the beach.  The ranger said they will be leaving withing the week, so
we were lucky to visit when we did.

The ranger is pointing out examples of what our trees will look like 10 years
from now!!