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Tag: Otago Peninsula

Looking down (#38 in series: on kelp, Otago Peninsula, NZ)

 

 

The Otago Peninsula is a long” finger”, extending 20 kilometres east-ish from the second largest city on New Zealand’s South Island.

Dunedin is modest in population – a “permanent” home to little more than 130,000 people, and now #7 in NZ.

Once, however, it was the nation’s premier city.

Dunedin still feels surprisingly “grand” and “important”; culturally, this “university city” is generally considered one of NZ’s “big four”.

The Otago Peninsula’s sheltered side is the southern wall of the large, drowned valley that is Otago Harbour.

Otago Peninsula’s ocean-facing side is very much wilder.

My photo looks down from the ocean side of the Peninsula’s extremity, Taiaroa Head, which is home to the world’s only “mainland”  breeding colony of Northern Royal Albatross.

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Grand sands (#22 in series: on Sandfly Bay’s “snoozable” sand)

Sandfly Bay is also seal-approved – one species of fur seal does like to slumber there – but the pictured individual belongs to a much rarer species, of sea lion.

New Zealand’s sandflies are deservedly infamous, globally.

However the name of this spectacular Otago Peninsula ocean beach does not “honour” sandflies; it refers to the fact that on a windy day this is a place where sand really does fly!

On a milder, sunny day – such as 23 March, 2019 – Sandfly Bay loses its “sting”, and its sandy beach provides a warm, perfectly form-fitting, easily-adjustable “mattress”.

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Intertidal: #10 in series (Otago Harbour, viewed from Otago Peninsula)

Where a particular intertidal zone’s “bottom” has a very gentle slope, even relatively modest tidal ranges will yield spectacular transformations, often twice-daily

One such place is immediately east of Dunedin, on the southeastern side of New Zealand’s South Island.

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