Seal Colony Kaikōura

A seal-furry hello,

Today I'll take you on my little tour along the coast in Kaikoura. Here lives a huge colony of seals and I went to visit them.

In the photo, it may look like the sun is setting, but it was actually around 11 in the morning. I slept in and had a hearty breakfast because I wasn't 100% fit when I woke up. The plan was to incorporate the hike to the seals into a larger hike, but I seemed to have lost my motivation somewhere in my half-asleep state, so I only did a short 2-hour tour.

And the route leads me almost directly through the colony, which can sometimes be a bit nerve-wracking when an old seal bull lies in front of you and grunts strangely. Of course, I tried to disturb the animals as little as possible and not get too close, but sometimes the path didn't allow for anything else. In those moments, I was grateful that the seals are used to people walking by and were more interested in their midday nap.

Besides the seals, I was able to observe some Shags cleaning their feathers and also enjoying a quiet morning/afternoon.

And like so many places in the world, this area is not spared from tags! Always nice to see the stickers. The tour was very relaxed, and I approached things very chilled. I also knew that I would be spending the rest of the day in the car as I continued driving north. The next few days were not completely planned out yet. The only fixed point in my plan was the appointment for my crossing to the North Island. There was still about 1 week until then, so I spontaneously decided to spend the night at a DOC campsite at Marfells Beach. When I set off, I couldn't resist stopping by the delicious ice cream stand again...simply delicious!

Upon arriving at the beach, I spent some time in the van reading with the sound of the waves and a great view, then enjoyed a delicious dinner with a view. It was very amusing to see wild pheasants strolling around the campsite. Unfortunately, I was a bit too slow for a feather-light dinner ;)

With heavy wind and the sound of the sea, I crawled into the van in the evening and spent a quiet night by the sea.

After some back and forth thinking, and deciding that Blenheim wasn't worth a longer stop, I continued driving northwest and decided to head straight to one of the filming locations from The Hobbit next. I'll tell you more about that in the next post.

Your Britta