A Day with the Seals and Seagulls

Today was a relaxed, chill day in the car.  In the morning, we stopped in the town of Kiakoura on the North East cost of the South Island to publish my blog from last night.  We are driving through rural areas and there is spotty internet.  We have to rely on our cell service internet stick and even cell service is hard to come by.  Kiakoura happened to have cell service and a grocery store, so we left stocked up, happy, and published! 

The best part of my day was hanging out at a long rocky point with seals and seagulls.  If I become a photographer, I would like to be a wildlife photographer.   Here, I was able to practice on all the marine life.  The shore was made up of large rocky points, tide pools, and sea weed.  Clinging to the rocks were large glimmering limpets, snails living in colorful shells that look like a flattened cone.  We saw only one or two seals, yet the area was said to be a seal reserve and birthing ground.  It looked as though most of the seals were hanging out on an island off the shore aways.  The only way to access it is by sea kayaks or boat.  Soon, we jumped back in the car and were off again.  

I spent the rest of the drive reading and taking pictures out the window of the van.   We soon arrived at a camping site outside of Blenheim with a few other campers parked beside us.  We walked over a small hill by our van to see a beautiful beach with high rolling waves.  It was still rainy, so we went back inside the van to cook lamb and have a nice New Year’s Eve.  Tomorrow we will drive to the small town of Murchison.  There, we will whitewater kayak and hang out for the next couple of weeks.  I am excited to see what that will be like.  I wish you all a happy new year!


Thank you for reading Rohan Geographic!