Operation: Sandfly Bay

Due to our failure to see yellow-eyed penguins on our earlier peninsula trip, we decided last Saturday to return to Sandfly Bay, in hopes that we could see these birds, the rarest penguins in the world, either coming ashore to nest at dusk, or tromping back to sea come dawn. After being left high and dry by a few gents who said they could drive, we had to decide how we would get to the beach, especially since dusk was soon approaching. It seemed car was out, bus would take a long wait, and walking was suicidal, so hitchhiking (legal here) became the best option. We set to work making signs and went on our way...

Not long after deciding to hitchhike we realized that on a Saturday night at 7:30pm most people would be heading to Dunedin to wine and dine, not out to the peninsula. So, we grabbed a taxi to highcliff road, the highest point on the peninsula, from which point we would walk and/or hitchhike our way to Sandfly Bay. Jim, our taxi driver, had light rock playing in the car, songs that would be stuck in our heads like cancers for the next two days. He told us "good luck" with a smile, and went on his merry way. After climbing to the top of a soldiers memorial nearby and watching the sun set over Dunedin, we decided we didn't want to walk much longer...

We got out our sign for Sandfly Bay, and our best smiles, waves, and thumbs. These did not work on the first passers-by, but the next car stopped almost right away. We exchanged introductions with Martin, and found out that he is one of the only remote souls that lives anywhere close to Sandfly Bay. This is because, as a part of the yellow-eyed penguin nesting ground, the bay and its surrounding areas are part of the Sandfly Bay Wildlife Refuge, which neighbors the Sandymount Wildlife Refuge to the north. Martin's house is snuggly squeezed between the two refuges. The gods were smiling on us. Martin was just returning from a Victorian and Edwardian Festival in a neighboring town, and so we got a mini history lesson on our way to his house. Upon arriving we met his two sheep, Tussock and Thistle, who were much friendlier than all of the sheep we met later on our journey. Martin informed us that it was going to be a cold, windy and rainy night, and offered us a plot on his lawn for our tent, or even a warm bed inside - Oh, the rural kiwi hospitality! Since cozier lodging would not satiate our hunger for adventure, we walked on, and made it to the beach in only 15 minutes (a walk that, without the ride, would have taken us three hours).

As the sun had already set, we knew we would have to see penguins in the morning. We walked along the coast for a while as the waves crashed and the tide slowly rose. We had to find a place to set up our tent - perhaps behind a sand dune? It would have to be an area sheltered from the constant 40mph winds that rush over the beach. Ted brought with him a two-person tent, which we three would get to spoon up in. This would keep us warm, but was a little more intimate than we prefered. Imagine our excitement, then, when we stumbled upon (with Matt's help) a penguin viewing house at the far side of the beach! Four walls, a roof, and a sandy floor would make for a lovely, warm and dry night's sleep. As you can see, we feasted on bread, cheese, apples, and wine to celebrate, and even had a cigar outside while the stars came out. Matt and I chatted for a couple hours after Ted hit the sack, but I should not say that we were alone. Hanging out with us were two opposum-like critters with long, furry tails. They got as close as six feet from us! but we didn't give them anything that would keep them around, and made sure to close our door and windows tight to avoid scavenger buddies in the night.

We woke up at 5:30 in the morning to see if the penguins were yet on the move, and they were not. It was still quite dark. We did not wake up again until 6:30, when a tour guide barged into the viewing house with four Japanese tourists! He was, to say the least, a bit surprised to find us there, told us sleeping there was strictly against the rules (rules which were not posted), and asked us to pack up our things quickly to make room for the five of them. He could not kick us out, however, because it is a public space. He and the tourists nearly managed evicting us, though, as they took up all of the main viewing windows across the front of the house...grrrr. It was cool to hear the wide range of information that the guide had to say about the penguins, so thatr made up for his initial rudeness. Unfortunately the only penguin we saw came out from his nest, stood poking his fur for thirty minutes with his white belly facing the ocean, and then disappeared again into the grasses. This was our pseudo-lame penguin experience - although not as much of a let down for us as for the tourists who paid to see them!

We continued our day by hiking to the top of Sandymount and working our way through the native bush to lover's leap, where we stopped to eat our brunch - a meal of the remaining bread and cheese, a can of garbanzo beans, dried banana chips, an apple and a granola bar. From the cliff where we sat it was a 150 foot drop down to the grassy, rocky, sheep-spotted hills below, hills which then ended by falling down another 50 foot cliff face to the Pacific. Why it is called Lover's Leap, we could only speculate, but we were not suicidally inspired...















upper left: Sandfly Bay from the top of Sandymount
upper right: Sandfly beach from the viewing house
bottom left: The beach from the window in the penguin-viewing house - sea lions were chilling on the rocks at the base of the cliff to the left
bottom right: Me, Matt and Ted, from left to right, eating and looking dapper at Lover's Leap

...We slowly hiked back to the other side of the peninsula from 8:30 to 11:30, seeing many trees growing sideways from the wind, many sheep who were not as friendly as Tussock and Thistle, a lot of noisy birds, and, of course, amazingly picturesque, rolling-green countryside. When we got to Portobello, a larger community on the north coast, we all got ice cream and made a sign for Dunedin to hitch a ride. It was either hitchhiking or waiting for the 1pm city bus. Nobody picked us up, despite our smiles, waves, and hansome good looks. So, we went to the bar next door, got a pitcher of beer to share, got on the bus at 1pm, and all fell asleep. We were just a bit tuckered out! And so, Operation: Sandfly Bay came to a quiet close...a great impromtu adventure, it was - we will just have to catch those penguins next time.

Over and out!