NZ scenery

The trip to NZ has come to a close, and I am back in Scotland. To finish up, I wanted to share a few photos of the stunning scenery.  The second photo is of Lake Tekapo, where we visited a hot springs overlooking the lake (can't beat the view, plus the mountains in the background are the misty mountains from the hobbit :) ). 

A wonderful trip, highly recommend a visit!

NZ Fur Seals: Babies!

The fur seals were all over NZ.  There was a particularly large colony just north of Kaikora.  Just off the highway, there was a small lookout point that let you observe the wild animals, hidden from view so as not to bother them.  And we were there in time for the new babies! 

Albatross

New Zealand is home to several species of albatross. They are massive birds; there wingspan gets over 4m!  It's hard to tell when they are flying on there own, but when you see a tiny speck of a seagull flying next to them it is very impressive!  I also like that when they land they "walk on water", like in the photo above.

NZ-Kaikora dolphins

While in Kaikora we also went on a dolphin tour.  This tour allows people to swim with the wild dolphins, but I only went as an observer and stayed on the boat.  I wasn't sure how ethical it would be to expose wild dolphins to groups of human swimmers, but it seemed like it was ok (from the dolphins perspective). The people we thrown in off shore, and the dolphins were free to approach or leave as they pleased.  The humans were not very adept swimmers, and just kinda bobbed along in their wetsuits, so the ackward swimmers didn't seem at all bothersome to the graceful dolphins.  Though I do worry a bit about the swimmers around the much more adept dolphins....

We were with a pod of about 400 dusky dolphins.  They are very acrobatic, and do tons of leaps and spins and jumps.  They were very interested in the boat and the people; they came right up to explore.  And from the boat they would leap around feet away from you.  Way better than any sea world visit!

NZ-Kaikora

 

Kaikora is another small NZ town on the water.  The highlight of this city is the nearby group of male sperm whales that stay near by.  We spotted this guy, named "Tutu" by the local researchers tracking the whales, during our boat trip.

NZ-Akaroa

One of the places we visited in NZ was Akaroa, on the east coast near Christchurch. Absolutely stunning, it is a tiny town in a bay where the mountains meet the ocean.  We took a boat trip out, led by Murphy the dolphin detector dog. He did a brilliant job; we saw tons of hector's dolphins (which are highly endangered).  The dolphins had a great time bow riding with our boat.  We also saw albatross, blue penguins, and fur seals in a rookery, but photos of them will come later :)

Conference Venue

I think they did a great job choosing where to host the conference :)

Kea

I was luck enough to see a Kea while here. They are the only species of Alpine parrot in the world, and only found on the southern island of New Zealand.  They are hard to find now a days as they have been hunted out by farmers because the birds would attack sheep stock.  Gorgeous birds though; I didn't catch a picture, but underneath the green wing feathers they are a brilliant orange color.

New Zealand!

 

I made it to New Zealand safe and sound after a very long flight.  Things couldn't have gone smoother.  Started off the trip right today by going out with friends on a wildlife tour.  We saw all the big critters you hope to see in the area: yellow eyed penguins (photos up top, though that is a juvenile so he doesn't have the yellow eye band yet), blue penguins, fur seals (the guys up top), sea lions, and albatross (massive! their wingspan was 3 m!)