March 30, 2016
What a pleasure to wake up, look outside and see this beautiful bay. We almost missed this, and now we’d count it as one of our favorite spots. We were heading on this afternoon but planned to take a walk ashore before we left.
When we landed the dinghy, the brown stone beach, blue-green water and thick vegetation reminded us a lot of America’s Pacific Northwest. We found a trail and followed it through the lush forest, much too lush to get the hoped-for photo of Legacy from the headland. (As problems go, that’s one I don’t mind having.) As we headed back to down towards the beach, we could hear birds all around us. New Zealand works hard to rid their nature reserves of introduced predators, and it really makes a difference in the level of birdsong.
Below, a gallery of photos from our walk. Click to enlarge and scroll.
We were sad to leave this place, but it was time to move on. It was when we were headed out of Double Bay that we came across the Hector’s dolphins (see Rich’s post below). There’s a lot of wildlife in the water here: different species of dolphin, fur seals, blue penguins, stingrays, gannets, gulls, and cormorants (aka shags) everywhere. Later in the season, there’ll be orcas and, rarely, some large whales, but we should be gone by then. For now, we’ve started a wildlife theme of the day featuring whatever stood out the most, and today’s theme was Hector’s dolphins. –Cyndi
