The Otago Peninsula
03 December 2015 | Portobello Village Tourist Park, Portobello, South Island, New Zealand
Photo: Looking northeast from Sandymount Summit over Hoopers Inlet and the northern half of the Otago Peninsula, South Island, New Zealand
After a late-night with the blue penguins (a good name for a TV show), we were a little slow in starting on Wednesday morning (December 2nd) but once we had eaten breakfast we were ready to make the most of the beautifully sunny day. We first drove down a gravel road from the center of Portobello village to enjoy the views from a headland on which was located a university marine center. Apparently, there used to be a visitors center at this facility but it was closed to the public due to earthquake–related issues. Still, the views from the headland were impressive.
Sticking out perpendicular to the rest of the Otago Peninsula, this Portobello headland almost divides Otago Harbour in half. Narrow channels with swiftly flowing tidal currents provide the only access to the inner part of Otago Harbour because two islands lie between the Portobello headland and the outcrop of the opposite mainland coast that is home to the container port at Port Chalmers. One of the islands is called Quarantine Island, having been where, in the 19th century, ships from overseas would first have to deposit their passengers if there was any likelihood of illness aboard, before continuing to Dunedin.
With a brochure in hand that illustrated more than 20 hikes on the Otago Peninsula, it took us a little while to decide where to explore during our fine, free morning but we finally drove southwestward along the side of the large shallow Hoopers Inlet to reach the Sandymount Track Network. Here we both hiked to Sandymount Summit (319 m or 1,047 feet) where the 360 degree view from the “viewpoint” was rather thwarted by the tall flax and other vegetation. A relatively low, wooden tower or platform would have been very helpful here but we improved our vistas by balancing on top of the stone marker topped by a brass plate which identified distant geographical features. Wisps of mist that lingered in distant valleys added beauty and interest to the otherwise clear, windswept, spectacle.
Randall opted to return straight to the van (for lunch), while I continued down a very sandy trail (positively sliding in places) and then in a loop around the cliff-top base of Sandymount. With the sun shining, the strong breeze, the clear sky, the rich-blue sea, the sheep grazing, the skylarks trilling overhead, and the odor of fresh grass, I could easily imagine myself back on the fells of the English Lake District. It was a very familiar and comfortable feeling.
The trail took me to a pair of viewpoints, “Lovers’ Leap” and “The Chasm” the names of which could have been interchangeable because they both overlooked narrow, deep, sheer-sided canyons. They extended a few hundred meters inland, perpendicular to the coastal cliffs, and the most significant difference between them was that the lovers would have leapt into the waves that crashed into that canyon, rather than onto the grass and rocks at the bottom of The Chasm.
Pausing only to overlook three lime kilns that were used from the 1860s until 1938 and which now sat rather forlornly in a sheep pasture, we returned to Taiaroa Headland after lunch. After I had walked down to Pilots Beach to see it in the daytime and admire a couple of large, New Zealand fur seals resting there, we drove back to the village of Otakou and up a long driveway to Penguin Place.
This was the site of our final tour on the Otago Peninsula. After an interesting introductory talk and with five other visitors, we were driven across this private farmland/conservation area to walk along a series of camouflaged trenches in an area of native vegetation just inland of a wide sandy beach. The trenches allowed us to be at about eye-level with the penguins, and in two places we stopped and peered out of the blinds to see 1 m-tall A-frame wooden structures which contained nestlings of yellow-eyed penguins.
The fourth largest penguin in the world (65 cm or 26 inches tall), the yellow-eyed penguin is one of the rarest. With only about 5,000 birds breeding mostly around the sub-Antarctic Auckland Islands, they are even less abundant than their fellow endemic species, the Fiordland crested penguin. Not surprisingly, these slate-grey and white birds have a yellow eye and in adults a yellow band that starts at one eye and circles around the back of the head to the other eye. The feathers on the crown, forehead, and face are golden yellow with black shafts in adults and grey without the yellow eye-stripe in juveniles.
Although described as a penguin colony, yellow-eyed penguins are not particularly social creatures and will not nest within sight of each other. They are very shy and easily disturbed by the sight of humans and they also need dense native vegetation in which to nest. Hence, the need for trenches, blinds, extensive plantings of native shrubs, fences, and, of course, various methods of predator control at Penguin Place. There is a penguin hospital and rehabilitation program to which penguins are brought from all over the South Island, and a long-term monitoring program, including the banding of all of the colony’s birds. There were only 16 yellow-eyed penguins in the colony when records were begun in the mid-1980s and the numbers peaked at over 80 in 1996. Nest numbers fluctuate from year to year but there has been a reduction in numbers at Penguin Place since the peak. Encouragingly, however, the total number of pairs on the South Island have stayed fairly stable for the last 15 years at around 450.
Penguin Place was opened to the public in 1991 as “the world’s first - fully private, entirely tourism-funded conservation enterprise; it remains only one of three known in the world.” The absence of government funding presumably makes it easier for the owners to continue their farming as they wish, as well as maintaining this nesting area. The guide told us that the farmer owed three spectacular headlands and two beautiful beaches as well as a substantial area inland so it was an amazing piece of property.
The birds on the nests could not be seen very clearly under the shade of the A-frame so it was an extra thrill when, overlooking the beach from a headland later on the tour, someone spotted an adult yellow-eyed penguin coming ashore. Being low tide there was a wide expanse of sand for it to cross before getting to the cover of the vegetation and once it had stood-up and moved away from the water’s edge, this wary bird took a good look around. Pausing repeatedly, it took so long to waddle off the beach that our guide suggested that it was not necessarily one of the nesting pairs returning with food but might be an independent adult. Although we were seeing this bird from a great distance, out in the open it was a far more revealing view of the whole bird than we had seen at the nests.
Along our route, we also saw smaller nesting boxes, partly buried in the sandy soil of the grassy slopes, and from these peered the faces of little blue penguins. As we admired the New Zealand fur seal colony on the rocks below our headland, one of the other tour participants revealed that he was the head of the New Zealand Sea Lion Trust. After hearing him and our guide have good discussions about the role of the rare sea lions in regulating the population of this rare penguin, I asked where might be the best places to see the New Zealand, or Hooker’s, sea lion in the wild. I was given several suggestions along the Southern Scenic Route and without too much effort, we now knew which way we would be driving back to Queenstown.