Tiwul Serawot Blog: The Royal Albatross

It took about 3 hours for nature and bad luck to break him, but he finally said it. His steady level of energy seemed to momentarily sag. His posture up there in the driver seat crumpled just a little. I thought i detected a slight sigh, and before jumping out again into the driving rain to open yet another livestock gate, he said,

"Well guys, it looks like we're really having a shit day. This is more like what you would expect here in a winter storm..."

I was glad to hear him admit it, but i was still having a good time. I was just beginning to worry that he might be psychotically positive all the time. He'd done a great job though, of making the best out of the situation.

For a Royal Albatross though, it was a damn fine day. Gale force winds that made it physically difficult for a human to walk around in provide a stable surfing platform for a bird with wingspan up to twelve feet wide.

One of the things i liked about Dunedin was that in many parts of the city you could look up from just about anywhere downtown to gaze upon pretty sheep pastures on the steep hillsides that squeezed the town. Today we were traveling across some of those very pastures out to the very end of the Otago Peninsula. I never thought i'd do it, but we were on a bird watching tour. We were packed into a white van with 10 other people peering through foggy windows at a bunch of sometimes weird birds that i'd never heard of. I'm so uneducated about birds that i've been yelled at by three different people for passing up the opportunity to take a picture of one of the birds we saw that is apparently extremely rare to see, even for serious bird watchers. Looked like a typical skinny legged shallows bird to me.

A cool spit of land with a house on it.

Our main purpose for the tour was to go to the Royal Albatross, the biggest species of Albatross in the world. At the end of the Otago Peninsula lies the only mainland nesting site of the birds on the planet. It took us a long time to get out there, and when we finally did was when i started getting pissed off. The viewing is restricted to small groups, and our tour guide said we only had 1 hour to be there.

A wind gauge.

First we had to wait 10 minutes for things to get organized. During that time you can wander through various educational displays. Then, they take you into a room and give you an overview of what you are about to do next, which takes about 6 minutes. I was so ready to go into a photographic frenzy but... Then you have to watch an EXCRUCIATING 10 to 15 minute movie about the birds covering all the information you already learned looking at the displays while waiting to get into the theater. THEN MORONS GET TO ASK QUESTIONS THAT PROVE THEY WEREN'T LISTENING TO THE LONG ASS MOVIE!!!

Finally we were led outside where you must walk up a switchbacking concrete path, past several bunker entrances. For reasons i am in the dark about, you must pass through a couple of locked gates even though you are already in a secure area. More mysteries plagued my mind as i wondered why our ranger guide (not our day guide) was taking minute after minute to catch up with the group between each gate.

It had taken forever to get there, and the situation did not improve. The viewing room had windows on one side that were tinted, making for difficult exposures on a dark day. Even worse, there were tons of birght lights on in the room, causing reflections all over the glass. The worst though, was that the tinted glass was completely covered in dirt on the outside. I mean it was seriously dirty. Autofocus wouldn't work at all. I couldn't believe they would let them get that dirty. I could forget all about any great shots. If your trying to take pictures of objects that are quickly and randomly changing directions and distance from the camera, autofocus is pretty important, unless it's bright enough to have a longer depth of field. There was some European guy with a lot of camera equipment like me, and i could tell he was also infuriated about all the same things. He couldn't speak english though. I at least got the ranger lady to turn off all the lights in the room.

The birds were magnificent. It was hard to judge their size with nothing else on the hillside to compare to. Their size and the incredible design of their wings was occasionally given away when a smaller bird like a raven or a seagull would fly up out of the eddy created by the viewing building and enter the main wind current. Without warning those birds would be comically swept away out of control and out of site while only a few yards away the Albatross would be nearly motionless, hovering over the same position until suddenly veering unpredictably left or right like jet fighters breaking formation. I thought the wind was behaving unpredictably, but the ranger told us we were seeing mostly juvenile birds and, being back to solid ground for the first time since leaving the nest 4 or 5 years ago, the young birds were having a kind of social celebration, taking turns showing off their skills to their competitors. We were alotted about 15 minutes to watch the amazing, endangered creatures It went very fast.

Our next stop was another colony penguins. I felt a little misled and cheated on the Albatross portion of the tour. The brochures available on the Otago Peninsula and the information agents at the i-centers seemed to purposely conceal the fact that you can easily drive there yourself, free from any tour schedule. If the weather had been nice i would definitely have preferred to do so and enjoy the surroundings. As things were though, we did have a very friendly, likable, and very knowledgeable guide who pointed out an awful lot of things that i would have missed by myself. Plus, the penguins we were going to see were on private land, so at least you had to be on the tour to see them. Access was by driving across numerous grazing fields full of sheep and through half a dozen gates. I could see how this part would get pretty old for a guide. Stopping, opening the gate, driving through the gate, stopping, closing the gate, driving to the next gate, and repeating the whole process in reverse on the way back. Along the way the sheep continuously proved themselves worthy to be eaten.

The penguins were at a secluded beach. Penguins in this area seemed to all climb up the high hillsides upon emerging from the sea. I asked how far they walked after swimming all day long (they seem exhausted when they get out) and was told that they have been known to walk as far a a kilometer up the hills every day to get to their nest. They walk slow too.

We had to walk down the hill in the rain through high wet grass and thistles. The wind was raging and i actually fell down once because i had made the poor choice of wearing loafer type shoes for the day. We were unable to get very close to these penguins, the free viewing we saw a few days before was a much better value. I decided that the next time i go see Albatross and Penguins it's going to be on South Georgia Island.

Some of the baby penguins were getting large. This one (on the left), after meeting it's parent for the first time since early morning, was showing how big and tough it was by spinning around and spreading out it's wings.

We didn't get back to town until about 8:30 at night. Unfortunately for us, we had to leave. It turned out that all the hotels in town were booked for days because of college orientation week and some sporting events. We had to drive through the dark and pouring rain for two hours over unlit twisty roads in the hills to get to the nearest hotel with vacancy. It was in a small redneck town and a rock band was playing at our hotel. It was rowdy enough that the police showed up. I was happy because i wanted to sleep. The next morning i found a huge pile of unopened beer bottles grass near my car. I should have taken some.