Kaikoura

We were in Kaikoura, a small town in the east coast, for the bulk of Queen's Birthday weekend. Queen's Birthday is the only major holiday weekend in between Easter, in April, and Labour Day, in October--so people take advantage. Although, fun fact, it's not actually her birthday--the current Queen's birthday was back in April or something--so she gets to celebrate twice!

On the way into town we were on the lookout for a place called Ohau point. Our water taxi driver for Queen Charlotte Sound told us it was a great seal colony and that there was a short walk to a waterfall, right before the point, where you could find all the baby seals playing in a lagoon during the winter. He said it wasn't very touristy.

Well, the secret's out. At least it was on Queen's Birthday weekend. There were TONS of people doing the walk. It's run by the DOC and I have never seen so many people on a DOC walk the entire time we have been in New Zealand. Baby seals are a big draw I guess.

We decided to hit the point first, as it was much less crowded, and see the grown up seals on the coast. There were a lot, including some pups playing in the pools. As we drove into town we noticed seal colonies all along the coast into Kaikoura and there were even more once you got into town. They are New Zealand fur seals, and some of them grow up to be big dudes!

 

 

 

But before driving to town, we went back and braved the crowds for the walk to the seal pups. It was worth all the people and you still got a great view as the area where they play is quite small and they come up very close to you. They were so cute! Romping around in the water, play fighting on the rocks. It was really cool to get such an intimate experience with wild animals.

 After that neat sight, we headed into town. We first stopped and walked along the beach, just killing some time and enjoying the view.

 

 

Once we got to our hostel, the woman told us about another great walk right in town that follows the coastline on a cliff top and has some great views. So we headed there for the afternoon. Right after the car park, when the tides are out, you can walk along the flat rocks and see some of the full grown seals sleeping in the sun. The sings posted encourage you to stay at least 10 meters (30 feet) from the seals. You probably don't need to stay that far away--we tended to keep a 10-foot distance. 

The walk along the cliff top was quite nice, as the cloudy weather turned away from the town and the sun came out for our walk.

We reached a point where you could keep going on the cliff top or head down to the coast and walk back that way--so we chose to descend. There were tons of seals on our walk back, and many were not far from the walking path. Most of them were sleeping and so we did our best not to disturb them. 

An older couple met up with us on the walk back over the flat rocks and we soon found out why the signs say to keep your distance. Fur seals are not like the ones in the zoo or Sea World. They have teeth, are very territorial, and they can be aggressive. They are wild animals. As we made our way back to the car park the tide was coming in--which limited where we could go if we didn't want to get wet. At one point we hit a spot that had a rather small area where we could safely cross and a seal was laying right in the middle of it. The man of the couple made his way forward and basically tried to walk over the seal to get past. As he got up close, the seal sat up and barred his teeth and basically growled at him. The man quickly backed away and we managed to find some rocks a few feet away where we could safely pass.

When we got to almost the very end, I found an adorable seal pup sleeping in the grass on a rock right next to the path. I carefully made my way closer, to about 5 feet, to get a good picture--though I was ready to run if the mother came after me! No worries, though. I got the picture without incident.

It was a really neat afternoon and we were so happy the supposedly horrible weather held off. 

That night, back at the hostel, we enjoyed the nice spa pool on the back deck that was free to use for guests! It was popular and crowded all day, but after dinner it emptied out and we enjoyed a relaxing evening with the two of us and two other Americans that were staying at the hostel. They were in NZ for about 6 weeks on a volunteer conservation project and were only in the South Island for the long weekend, but they were very nice and we enjoyed talking to them.

We hope to go back to Kaikoura some weekend down the line, after we start working, and do their whale watching tour--but we had to skip that for the time being. Next day, it was off to Hanmer Springs!