Dunedin: Burns, Albatross and Penguins

But, Mousie, thou art no thy lane,
In proving foresight may be vain;
The best laid schemes o' Mice an' Men,
Gang aft agley,
An' lea'e us nought but grief an' pain, For promis'd joy!
-- "To A Mouse" by Robert Burns*



I'm never pleased when the cruise line docks in a commercial zone and charges for a shuttle to the city. It just seems that some of those port charges and taxes ought to be directed to free shuttles. It really is the equivalent of paying for a tender, in my opinion. Regardless, we paid the ten dollars or whatever it was for roundtrip passage to the Octagon, the cultural town center of New Zealand's Scottish-flavored town, Dunedin.

Archaeologists have found evidence of Moa Hunter camps in Otepoti, the Maori name for the area now known as Dunedin and the Otago Peninsula. There were still fortified Maori settlements in the area when famed English sea farer James Cook, at the time a Lieutenant working toward the Captain rank of his fame, reported seeing penguins and seals upon his first visit in 1770.

Soon after Cook's exploratory visit, more Europeans arrived to hunt seals, leading to the Sealers' War with the Maori. This feud and epidemics of diseases introduced by the Europeans decimated the Maori population. Port Otago evolved into a whaling village in a few short years, but it was the arrival of the Free Church of Scotland that would imprint the town as Dunedin with buildings styled in the romantic tradition of Edinburgh, Scotland. The name Dunedin came from Dùn Èideann, which is Scotch Gaelic for Edinburgh.

A stature of Scottish poet Robert Burns, created by Sir John Steell, the premier Scottish Sculptor of the 19th Century, is a focal point of the Octagon. While celebrating the Scottish artisitic achievements may have been enough reason for the statue, there was also a direct tie to Dunedin, because the first minister of the Free Church was Burns's nephew, Thomas Burns.

In driving through the countryside, it's easy to see the Scottish influence in the way the fields are laid out, and they even brought yellow flowering shrubs from Scotland which, like the rabbits I mentioned in a prior post, proved to adapt too well to the new environment.
Still, it is strikingly lovely in Dunedin's countryside.

After some confusion meeting up, our tour had picked us up in the city and toured the countryside en route to a small boat which we would take to the Royal Albatross Colony, a rocky outpost inhabited by albatross. The boat bobbed in the choppy sea, and when a giant albatross flew over the top of our boat, I couldn't get steadied and get out my camera in time. Like the extinct Haast's Eagle, albatross are gigantic, with wingspans as large as ten feet or even larger. We saw some on the hillside, and a few took flight and circled around the hill to the other side. 

Albatross are amazing fliers that circumnavigate the globe over the period of about five years. They spend days at a time going across the ocean, swooping down at up to 115 miles per hour to catch fish, and occasionally landing in the sea to take naps during their long voyages between continents. We were supposed to be out at sea for an hour, but I don't think anyone complained when we headed back after 45 minutes. Despite lined raincoats, it was cold and uncomfortably bouncy in the little boat tossed about by the wind and sea. When we cruised out of the harbor at the end of the day, we actually had a very good view of the colony.

We took off through the countryside again to the main attraction, a penguin colony. Penguins have been a favorite of my family for years, and I have to confess that an old Monty Python routine had something to do with it. Nonetheless, they're cool little fellows who have a tough life these days. The penguin colony was established to help them re-populate, with manmade peaked structures replacing natural homes that have been destroyed by the encroachment of civilization. These yellow-eyed penguins are about two feet tall. After birth and a short time waddling around on shore, the babies are sent bravely out to sea to find their ways in life. While the conservationists have helped provide a safe environment for penguin birth, only a small percentage return from the sea, where large, vicious predators are many.

*Translations for Robert Burns's odder phrases:

“thou art no thy lane” means: you are not alone

“Gang aft agley” means: often go awry

“An' lea'e us nought but grief an' pain” means: and leave us nothing but grief and pain