We were looking for a lie-in but the car would have been towed away at 10 from its slot on the water front so we had to be up reasonably early, 8.30 ish. I lost out completely on the silence protocol for the bathroom (in principle our bathroom was reserved for us and next door) which gave me a few more moments to catch up on a poor night's sleep.
We were going to head out to the adjacent headland to the east, New Zealand roads meaning you have to drive halfway back up the island to get there. We stopped at a cafe en route where I was offered cream with my breakfast carrot cake -- how could I resist? -- and the blokey gave us a few helpful tips on where to go. Firstly, round the lake then down to the coast where the Harley-Davidson Owners Group hang out then down to the seal colony. That sounds good. As it happens the map mentioned the seal colony but we'd failed to see it. Helen made some phone calls and we're booked into Te Anau and Invercargill for Christmas and Christchurch for New Year.
We completely failed to see the lake. The road we chose didn't skirt it directly and the land is a huge flood plain (evidenced by "road open" signs). Lake Ferry (a town) on Lake Onoke (almost a lake, a near complete sandbar across a bay) is pretty anonymous but has a fairly steep black shingle beach which has 2-3m waves crashing up it. We watched that for a bit as it's quite mesmerising.
We headed off on the long road to Cape Palliser lighthouse. The road is intermittently metal, gravel, "active slip", temporary bridge and makes you wonder why people bother but there's as many houses down here as anywhere.
Shortly before Black Rocks our keen wildlife eyes spotted a sole seal (actually, I saw a parked car, then the seal). We jumped out and as your eyes adjust half a dozen appear. They're funny creatures with loveable faces which pop up sniffing the air as you approach then settle down again letting you get within a few yards. The lighthouse gives a reasonable view (after the 256 step, 75m climb).
On the way back we made a last minute decision to drive out to Black Rocks (it's [literally] just off the road) and found some more seals playing in the crashing waves (they seem to like that) but a lot more barking. After a while our careful rock negotiation -- they weren't difficult rocks but the seals clambour a long way inland and "appear" from nowhere and they're not small -- we found a crevice/gorge with a dozen or so noisy ones. Some of these were young, still moulting then an 18 inch fluffy ball barked out of a crack.
We'd spent an hour filming [and watching] this bunch and were just leaving when only three yards from us another bark and another pup crawled out of a crack now well away from the others. He bounced around in front of us for a few minutes occaisionally hollering for his mum before, as far as I could tell, he fell off behind another rock. Once again, I was camcordering and didn't get a still picture for the journal. Sorry!
Very pleased with our day out even if we hadn't seen any LOTR film locations we headed back to Wellington. An Italian "BYO/wine" for tea where, due to illness, Helen had to let me consume most of the wine and off to an early bed for tomorrow's 8am sailing to Picton in the South Island.
YHA, Wellington S41.29293 E174.78398 Elev. 0m!
Copyright 2002 Ian Fitchet. All rights reserved.