Before leaving Te Anau to head east across the south island to Dunedin, we went to a morning presentation at the Te Anau Bird Sanctuary. The boys got to feed the local ducks, and we learned about New Zealand native birds from a volunteer ranger.
This colorful guy is a takahe, which is a rare flightless bird that was thought to be extinct but was rediscovered in 1948. Its eggs are beautifully spotted.
Our drive from Te Anau to Dunedin took us through the towns of both Gore and Clinton....the highway between them is aptly named the Presidential Highway.
Our rental home in Dunedin was close to a tidal bay, where the water level changed a lot during the day. When we arrived in the late afternoon, we could walk out quite a ways into the bay without getting wet (just muddy shoes).
The waters were coming back in, and the muddy ground quickly filled up. In this picture Emmett looks like he's standing on water.
We went out on the Otago Peninsula to visit the Royal Albatross Centre, home of the world's only mainland colony of these giant birds.
This picture gives you an idea of the size of the birds compared to the size of our boys.
The Royal Albatross wingspan reaches up to 11 feet (3.4 meters).
A guide took us to a viewing bunker that was built into the landscape and carefully designed so as not to impact the birds, who come here to lay eggs and raise their babies.
We even got to see a Royal Albatross chick! His parent was off getting food.
At the end of our tour, the dudes checked out one of the prison cells, a vestige of when the Otago Peninsula had military facilities and coastal fortifications.
Back in Dunedin, we stopped by the "steepest street in the world".
It was hard to capture the steepness of this road in pictures. This is looking up towards the top.
This is along the street, as we climbed up to the highest point.
And this is looking back down at where we started. The road was so steep, cars driving down disappeared from view for a while before we could see them again, when they got closer to the bottom.
I love how crazy this photo looks! Which one is level--the road, the house, or me?
Dunedin's train station is regarded as the most photographed building in New Zealand. The renaissance revival architecture was quite different to any other building we'd seen in the country so far.
The inside decorations were ornate.
The stained glass windows were very pretty as they shone with the sun behind them.
And the train-themed mosaic tile work inside was also pretty!
We boarded a train for a scenic trip along the Taieri Gorge.
But not before taking at least one silly photo.
The landscape outside Dunedin was beautiful and looked different from what we saw on the west coast of the south island.
We hung out at the back platform of our train car, watching the scenery go by.
The train would stop at certain points so everyone could get off to take pictures. The midpoint of the journey was very flat and windy.
Heading back, we rested and Colin passed the time creatively.
We passed this house--the owner has to park his car and walk through the train tunnel and along the tracks to reach his house. Apparently it gets no cell reception, no internet, and no TV channels due to its isolated location. It is so isolated, in fact, that the bathtub is in the yard, next to the river that it draws water from. Talk about scenic bathing.
While different from the west coast of the south island, Dunedin was a great little city and the Otago Peninsula had its own beauty to offer. We were quite glad to have stopped here!
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