Mom & Dad in Dunedin: St. Clair, Pups & Penguins!

On Friday, we decided to give Mom and Dad a bit of a break from turbo-touring.  We walked down to town and saw some of the downtown sites.  We took them on Vanessa and my daily walk to OUSA and then walked over to the train station to take this picture.  :)

Saturday it was back to a jam-packed day.  We drove out to Lee Stream to attempt to go to the Mahinerangi Wind Farm open house, but the lines were crazy long.  Who knew a wind farm would be so popular?  Go clean energy!  Elena had to work at 2pm, and we didn't want to risk not making it back in time, so we headed back to St. Clair beach in Dunedin instead.  St. Clair beach, and their old pilings in particular, have got to be the most photographed sites in Dunedin after the railway.  There are prints of them everywhere, including Mom & Dad's apartment!  Needless to say, we took our own pictures of this famous Dunedin landmark.

Shark Warning Bell...awesome.

Mom misses her Elena.

Jumping Picture Amazingness.

Toddalopsky and me.

After dropping Elena off at work, we headed out to Natures Wonders.  Natures Wonders "is a self funded conservation effort  to ensure that this land is preserved for all future generations to enjoy, by protecting the penguins, fur seals and other wildlife. The wildlife are living in natural environments the way nature intended it to be," and our tour was AMAZING!!  The four of us were in a four-wheeled vehicle that could do anything with our own personal tour guide, Kerry, who was great.  He took all over the property, and we got to see fur seals and their pups (SO CUTE!! Make sure to watch the video below), yellow-eyed penguins, and blue penguins.

 

 

Video of adult and pup seals swimming in their rock pool

Video of seal pups swimming in their kiddie pool

These pups wanted to cross in front of us to their pool, so we let them.

 Watch this video to see them crossing - SO FREAKIN' CUTE!

Kissing seal pups

 

SO CUTE!

Can you believe how close I am to them??!!

After hanging with the seals, we headed over to the penguin hides to watch for yellow-eyed penguins.  Yellow-eyed penguins are the third tallest penguin (versus the blue penguins which are the shortest) and only exist on the South Island of New Zealand.  We spotted 2 which doesn't sound impressive, but trust me, it was.

 

You can barely see this one. He's right in the middle and just came in from the water.

There are blue penguins in each of those burrows.  Trust me.

Our tour was awesome and worth the money even if we had only seen the seals.  If you're in Dunedin, don't miss Natures Wonders.

Check out Mom's hair.  It was a wee bit windy on the tour

We finished the day having dinner with our friends Gordon and Mark followed by post-dinner drinks at their house. Kiwi hospitality shines through again!