Seal Colony, New Zealand

Location: Kaikoura, New Zealand [Kaikoura Peninsula]

In a Nutshell: The Kaikoura Peninsula is home to a lot of wildlife – seals, whales, birds, etc.  Many New Zealand Fur Seals sun bathe and relax in this area.  You are allowed to walk around and explore, but are asked to not get so close to the seals in order to not scare them.

Experience: I loved walking around this area – there is so much life and beauty all around…  Seals were scattered all over the area to observe and it was fun to see them observing ME.  The seals and whales are of course the main attraction, but even the rocks were interesting to me.

There was water and small sea-creatures stuck in little pools in the rocks from high tide.  Massive amounts of some kind of sea plant was growing all over the rocks and was VERY slippery to walk on [but very fun to explore].

The rocks that weren’t horizontal to walk over were probably the most interesting – uplifted limestone and siltstone that had been eroded away from weathering and water have made huge vertical sheets of layered rocks.  These rocks are not easy walk on at all and are very sharp [found out the hard way].

All-in-All, this is a great place for road-trip stop.  There is a small town right near the seal colony so you can gas-up, get some food, and continue on your way after observing great nature!