Sandfly Beach

Second attempt at looking for penguins.

Another unsuccessful one. But we kind of expected not to see them because we went in the morning when they are often out fishing at sea. On the beach, there are blinds where you can quietly wait for them to come back 'home' in the evening. We will have to do that another day.

Sandfly Beach is just north of Paradise Track where we went a few days ago. The access to the beach was much easier, and the beach is rather impressive. We found a lone seal sleeping on the beach, and the boys spotted some sea lions on the rocks. Claire and I saw the black birds that we had never seen before. Apparently, they are called the 'oyster catchers'.

From our time at Sandfly Beach, we went over to the other side of the peninsula. University of Otago has their marine research lab/ aquarium there, on the harbor. We were familiar with many of the creatures there, having lived on the coast for a while ourselves, but there were some different looking things that perked our interest as well.

The sun came out on the way home, so we headed over to Baldwin Street, the steepest street in the world, apparently. Jim and Momo walked up the street, reporting back that it really is steep, impressively so. I would have gone, too, but my little daughter had just woken up from a nap, and a power walk up that hill was not in her card at that moment. No worries, we have a lot more time to do it again.

We ended our (long) day at the Botanical Garden. I will post more about that later, but it may perhaps be my favorite spot in Dunedin so far...