Drive to Kaikoura: Sunshine, seals and shags all the way down!

We had been planning an exploratory trip to Christchurch via the coast and Kaikoura, so when Tuesday, September 14th dawned with the best cloudless sunrise so far, we were excited to get on the road.

The nominal 2 hour drive to Kaikoura was excellent -- sunshine, seals and shags all the way down this beautiful coastal drive.

Shortly after our first ocean photo op stop, we came upon another pullout at Ohau Point that we almost skipped, but Mike noticed a sign about a seal colony so fortunately we pulled off. We saw lots of adult New Zealand fur seals and pups right below us, basking on the rocks.

Susan then spotted what we later learned were Spotted Shags (cormorants here are known as shags) nesting on a rocky outcropping to our right. We counted around 20 of these beautiful birds with their blue-green face, all in their double-crested breeding plumage. We watched them flying in and out, busily collecting materials to build their nests with.

Seeing the seals at this beautiful ocean viewpoint was great, and the spotted shags made it even better! But then Mike learned from a local at this stop that another pullout that we had just passed included the opportunity to see fur seal pups super close-up, so we followed them back up the road to see them, not expecting too much and still more excited about the Spotted Shags.



Be sure to click this link to see larger versions of the above pictures, including two short videos.

But the seal pups were truly one of the most amazing wildlife displays we've ever seen. After we parked, a sign we'd missed from the highway directed us up a 5 minute walk through the woods following a stream which emptied into the ocean on the other side of the highway. As we walked up the cool shaded path, we suddenly encountered two seal pups right in front of us! They just looked at us with those gigantic eyes, often with their head twisted upside down. They even made their way right up to us, one of them touching its nose to Mike's shoe to sniff it. We could have reached out and touched them, but we restrained ourselves. After a few minutes of taking this in we continued our walk, now seeing half a dozen more seal pups in the underbrush all along the trail. Delightful!

But the best was yet to come... the rocky stream widened into a large clear pool at the base of a 30 foot waterfall surrounded by a fairly dense canopy of trees and ferns. In the pool about 30 seal pups continuously frolicked about, porpoising out of the water, splashing and climbing on the rocks.

The sign at the beginning of the trail explained that in the winter, hundreds of fur seal pups travel up the stream to the waterfall. They interact socially with each other while their mothers are feeding at sea.

All this was going on just a stones throw away from us -- no zoom needed! It was an amazing and peaceful place. With some reluctance, we finally we tore ourselves away, excited and still smiling at this incredibly unique and unexpected treat.

Our drive continued until Kaikoura where we turned inland due to a slip (rockslide) dumping almost 30,000 cubic meters of rock/soil which had closed Highway 1 and the rail just south of Kaikoura.

This gorgeous drive took us closer to snow-capped mountains and hilly winding roads towards Christchurch, which we'll cover in our next post.