I knew, also, that there was a short hike to a waterfall a little bit farther down the road, which I had debated doing. I decided to stop, and I'm very glad I did. Because while the hike up was lovely...
...what I didn't know was that the waterfall is also a seal nursery.
These are New Zealand Fur Seals, another unique native species. At one point there were around one million of them, but they were hunted nearly to extinction. They were protected in 1894, and their number has increased to around 100,000. During the winter months, the seal pups come upstream to the waterfall to socialize and hang out while their parents go out to sea to hunt. It's late in the season, so there were only twelve pups playing in the pool, but apparently there can be up to fifty in the winter, and there will be pups the entire length of the stream out to the sea.
It's mostly wine country between Kaikoura and Picton, where the ferry to Wellington departs. I don't have any pictures of that, but it was, predictably, gorgeous. This is the ferry I will take on Friday:
I took the, again incredibly twisty, scenic route over to Nelson, but I did get a couple of pictures along the way.
I had dinner at a lovely restaurant called the Boat Shed Cafe (an unassuming name for such a fantastic place). A few minutes later, this area was full of sail boats.
I'm staying at a gorgeous old Victorian house in Nelson, and am looking forward to exploring more tomorrow!
No comments:
Post a Comment