SEAL PUPS!

Happy St. Patrick's day to everybody back home! I spent my St. Patty's night playing games at the hostel back in Kaikoura - one of which was battleship. A really old version - with an absurdly sexist box (see left)... Note the women folk doing the dishes in the background.

Ooooh k - these are the street banners in
Kaikoura - Christmas banners!

I am considerably less groggy than I was while writing my last post (that boat did NOT agree with me... and I have to get on another one tomorrow... fingers crossed for good weather. Weather! Funny story. I checked the forecast for Picton and it said "Gloomy with showers." Gloomy! That's a weather term here! I wonder if they say "cheery" when its supposed to be sunny...) Anyhow, last night/today it finally RAINED! Properly! As I think I've mentioned, NZ's been going through a huge drought and definitely needed the rain. Also Tuck looks much cleaner than he did yesterday. :p

King of the rock! Possibly Queen...

Today I made the short drive from Kaikoura up to Picton... or rather, it would have been short if I hadn't kept stopping to see the SEALS! Fur seals. And... fur seal pups! Which are really really ridiculously cute. There were hundreds of seals at Oahu point - both adults and pups - sleeping on the beach, playing in the waves and tidal pools, rolling in the kelp, frolicking on the rocks and fighting each other for the highest point on a given rock pile. They were also very vocal with their little bark-cries. ("Little" ... they were actually pretty loud, and most of the seals probably weighed more than I do).

Who has a cute face?
Its tongue is sticking out :p
(the shot before this has
it yawning haha)

A little further along the beach is the Oahu stream and waterfall. Seal pups come here by the hundreds in the winter months; though its just the start of autumn, there were a few early birds already present. Pups will spend about two to three days at a time just playing in this stream, which runs a few hundred meters inland to a 20m or so waterfall with a big pool at the bottom. They'll head back to the beach to get a snack from mom before returning to the stream. Its a safe place for them, and since seals are very social animals, it provides the pups with a place to "hang out" while their mothers are out hunting.

Since its only the start of the season for pups to be here, there weren't hundreds - but there were quite a few! They're born around November/December but don't usually head over to this area until April-ish. Clambering up onto rocks and sliding back into the stream, doing flips, chasing each other round and round in circles, and slip-climbing upstream all the way to the big pool under the waterfall. They're about the size of a small golden retriever - the adults are about the size of me if I wrapped myself in a lot of bubble wrap. :p But the pups have huge, round eyes... okay, the point I'm trying to get across is that they were really, really, reeeeeeaaaaally really cute!

Not many pictures of the pups since I didn't want to scare them with a flash and they were moving quite quickly. I did take some videos - both of the seals out at Oahu point and the pups in the stream, but my poor little computer can't handle playing them back haha - maybe I'll try and upload one anyhow and see if the browser can handle it... otherwise, I'll get them up when I go home. ;) (update - no go on the video haha).

A spider bit the top of my foot a few days ago and now it is very itchy. >:(


The Marlborough region smells like flowers! I noticed that on the way down, too. Its weird. I don't know where the smell comes from - its not springtime... but its definitely there.

So green :)
Forest around the Oahu stream (full of pups!)

And whats more, it doesn't bother me! I can't even keep cut flowers my room back home because of the pollen, and I remember stuffing straw mattresses at the fort a few years back and I didn't have any anti-allergy stuff with me, and every minute or two I'd be running into the barn with streaming eyes to blow my nose... not a very productive mattress-stuffing session... But my point is, this area has a distinctive floral scent and I do not know where it is coming from. :p

Seal pup on the stream bank