The search for sea lions - Victory Beach

New Zealand is home to much wildlife, and we have seen quite a lot of it! But, always looking for more, we really wanted to see some sea lions. We have seen many, many fur seals, and though they are super cute we haven't seen even one sea lion. (Although I've recently read that fur seals are actually misnamed sea lions, their external ears being proof of that.)

Somehow the need to see a sea lion turned into our self imposed quest...

Tussock dotted farmland

During our tour at the Albatross Centre, we eagerly asked our guide if she knew where it was most likely to see sea lions on the Otago Peninsula, since we had visited quite a few beaches already. She first advised Allan's Beach, where we look that morning, and if not there, give Victory Beach a try. We drove there as soon as we finished the Albatross tour.

En route to Victory Beach

From the carpark it was about 40 min walk to the beach. As usual in New Zealand, the walk itself was really pretty. First through farmland, then through dunes overflowing with flax and yellow lupin. The flax you see everywhere in New Zealand, but we haven't seen this much lupin before. 

Then we suddenly stumbled upon the beach. 

New Zealand flax

We intensely looked in both directions, but couldn't see anything seal or sea lion like. But, having learned from our previous experiences, we decided to walk north anyway. It's so hard to spot these animals, if you don't know where to look.

Victory Beach

And that was proven once again. After walking a few minutes, we saw something lying at the beach. Was it one of those kelp heaps? It wasn't moving for sure, but we walked towards it anyway. 

Coming closer we saw that it actual was an animal. But was it still alive? Her hind flippers and eyes were covered in flies... 

Is it alive?

As we closed in, she did move and it was definitely a sea lion! It didn't like us being too close and showed us her impressive set of teeth. All good. We kept some distance.

We still felt she wasn't the healthiest looking specimen, but later learned that sea lions are often covered in flies when lying at the beach. 

Look at those teeth!

We continued our walk, but didn't encounter any more sea lions. At the end of the beach, on the rocky outcrops were however a dozen or so fur seals. And some oystercatchers, and we did see some very freshly made penguins tracks. The walkers we talked to a few minutes before told us they saw two yellow-eyed penguins coming out of the water, but we just missed them...

Fur seal coming ashore

We walked back, and 'our' sea lion was still there. At the same spot, but her head was now towards the sea instead of the dunes, and she was sound asleep. 

She couldn't be bothered with us being near this time. 

Sleeping beauty

We walked back the same way we came. Today we saw albatrosses, red-billed gulls with chicks, oystercatchers, fur seals, white-faced herons, paradise shell ducks, pied stilts, and a sea lion. Not a bad day at all!

Sea lion at Victory Beach

Time for chicks - Royal Albatross Centre

We spent a few days in Dunedin, and one of the must-see's there is the Otago Peninsula. And that's exactly where we went. The peninsula is home to the world's only mainland royal albatross colony. And a tour is the only way to actually see the albatrosses, so, cheapskates as we are, we got tickets through a discount site, and booked a tour for 3pm.

Taiaroa Head Lighthouse

The colony is right at the head of the peninsula. We arrived a bit early so had a look around at the parking lot, with lots of screaming gulls. But no albatrosses of yet. We took a stroll to the cliffs, looked at the lighthouse, and the fur seals below them. We have seen a lot of fur seals this trip!

Our tour started with a video of albatrosses and a short talk. Both very informative. Did you know albatrosses mostly eat floating dead squid because they can't dive very deep? I didn't. 

Anyway, after that we walked up to the observatory, right in between the nesting albatrosses. There were several binoculars, so we could take a look. November is nesting period, and with the binoculars, we could see 5 birds from the observatory. Our guide tolds us a bit about their personalities, and about life in the colony in general. 

Southern Royal Albatross nesting 

Lower at the cliff we could see the cormorants nesting. After about half an hour we walked down again. For some of the participants this was it, but we had booked the 'unique tour', so we were allowed up in the old fortress.

We got to see the disappearing gun (yes really!), the old armoury, but best of all... two albatrosses up close! Appearantly they prefer nesting closer to the viewing post of the fortress than next to the observatory, who knew?

Red-billed gull

After the fortress tour, we walked all the way down, passed the red-billed gull colony. We've seen these gulls a lot in New Zealand, and hadn't thought a lot about it. But they turn out to be endemic to New Zealand, and endangered at that. 

But the best thing? Unlike the albatrosses, that take like forever to incubate, the guls' chicks had already hatched! Cute as a button, even though I know they'll grown up to be annoying gulls. 

Posing like a grown up gull.

The colony as a whole was loud and smelly, as you'd expect from sea gulls. The chicks range widely in age. The youngest we saw was a very fluffy and shy day-old (maybe even hours?) next to an unhatched egg. But others were a lot bigger and bolder, screeching away. Very cool to see that many, and that close up!

Fluffy little chick