These birds are huge. Never mind the fleece jacket in the middle of summer here, check out the huge wing span of the albatross as I am 6 foot tall.
Caught this bird in flight. So majestic. The smaller looking birds on the ground are also albatross but they are curled up on their lone egg of the season hoping their mate will return from feeding at sea for up to a week at a time. We did witness one “change over” when the mate returned and took its turn on the egg.
This young pair is courting. Not sure if it is the male or female that is showing off but they do mate for life so being careful in the selection process is important. Our guide, who knows all these birds by name, said there have been a few divorces over the year but not many. The birds raise their young for around 10 months before flying to the coast of Chile in South America and living it up there for over a year before returning to this same breeding ground. Albatross only visit land to breed once every two years, otherwise they stay at sea and rest on the water from time to time. Fabulously interesting species.
Looks like a match! Notice the other pair of adolescents too. Quite a few pairs. They are the ones doing most of the flying for our pleasure.
This adolescent bird gave us quite the flying exhibition. Click the link above to check it out for yourself.
The road out the peninsula to the Albatross Center afforded us many stunning views. The roads are so narrow and without guard rails that it was tough to find a spot to take a picture like this.
Took this picture from Lookout Point in Dunedin. It is the ridge we had to drive along to get to the Albatross Center. Could have driven the only other road which runs along the coast, but we will save that for a bike ride tomorrow.
This is Dunedin from the Lookout. One of the nicer cities we have found in New Zealand. With these surroundings, how could a city be anything but fabulous?
A picture of windswept trees along the road to the Albatross Center. No that is not a one lane road! No center strip either. Curves in the road are aplenty too. You really rely on the skill of the other drivers to stay safe around here.
As the Albatross Center is actually a retired New Zealand military fort we got to tour the fort and museum in the same building we observed the birds from. The Russian ship above was the reason for the fort’s existence. The Governor of New Zealand was invited on board the Russian vessel. He noticed that that one ship had more weaponry than the entire country of New Zealand. He decided to ask the British Throne for the resources necessary to defend itself. The Throne said no but did agree to sell them some armaments.
This “disappearing gun” was purchased along with 3 others. It gets rotated into position, raised up through the hole in the roof and fired before lowering it back down. Never was used in a war setting but was fired a few times when the soldiers thought they were being attacked by submarine. Turned out only to be sea kelp. The kelp is very large around here.
The spotter outside would relay the position of the enemy and the gun would be rotated to the corresponding number of degrees labeled on the wall above. The red line painted told them not to fire in that range no matter what as the shell would hit the lighthouse!
Here is one of the shells the gun would use. We were allowed to move it around a bit but at over 100 pounds each that was no easy task. They had piercing shells like this and explosive ones too.
On the way off the peninsula we were treated to a showing of black swans. Cool creatures in their own right.
The last stop for the day was Baldwin Street. The steepest street in the world according to the Guinness Book of World Records.
After visiting the street we had to verify this sign and it was indeed correct.
Not as hard to walk up as it looks but steep indeed. I installed an app on my phone to measure the angle of inclination and it came up at 19 degrees. That translated into a 35% grade (using the tangent ratio….who said math is not useful in the real world?). In the states, the National Park Service will only allow its trails to be certified if the grade is less than 10%. The Mount Washington Auto Road is an average 12% grade with a maximum of 25%.
Another day, another adventure or two. Long walk down the steep hill to find a cold beverage to celebrate!
Neat. Albatross is definitely a large creature. It’s interesting that there a few enough that the locals name them and remember the names.