Fur seals and waterfalls

And so we come to the last big adventure and final leg of this journey into the south. We headed up the coast towards the Ohau seal colony. This piece of coastline was quite rugged, with only the strongest kelp managing to withstand the pounding waves.

Despite the harsh appearance, this area was hub for wildlife, clinging to the rocks and cliffs. The number of seals appeared to be far greater than the one directly in Kaikoura, with fur seals hauled on the boulders and bedrock that are characteristic of this shoreline. Again, we got the chance to see some great behaviours from these seals, aside from laying around.

There were mother seals nursing their young on the relative safety of the bedrock.

There were pups and juveniles playing in pools, interrupted only by crashing waves.

And of course, there were many laying around; some in particularly awkward positions propped up on boulders.

Another seabird, the spotted shags with their distinctive blue, grey, white, and black patterns, were busy building nests on the pitted cliffside. We even got to see some collecting algae for building nests.

A bit further up the coast, towards the tip of the colony, there is a parking lot in front of a beach area that is noticeably bare of seals compared to the rest of the colony. What was apparent here were the seal pups, coming out of the water and heading up under the road and into the forest.

This short yet fantastic hike takes you along a stream bed where the seal pups traverse inland towards a very special place. The pups largely ignore you which was great because it allowed me to give Thomas a very close view of the pups.

The stream trickles down through pools to the ocean, but the goal of these pups is to follow the stream up towards a large pool at the base of a waterfall. Here at the base of the waterfall, the pups play in safety, diving around and making it very difficult for anyone to take pictures of them with the waterfall in such low light.

We all had so much fun and Thomas really took to the baby seals, so much so that on the day we traveled back to Christchurch, we detoured north for another visit. Then we headed south to Christchurch, passing through this place we had come to love so much. It is definitely somewhere we will be taking Thomas back too when he is older. And with that our Kaikoura adventure was over and we flew out the next day for Auckland again.