Sunday seemed like a good day to go for a hike. We’ve got a holiday coming up soon with lots of walking planned so we’ve been wanting to get out a bit more and have Alayna get used to longer treks. With a decent looking weather forecast we set our sights on the New Zealand fur seal haul-out at Sinclair Head past Red Rocks on the Wellington south coast. We also invited some friends and family to share the adventure and we all met up at the Te Kopahou Visitor Centre carpark ready to go.
It’s around 8km return and with a few young children it was never going to be a quick journey but even with stops for rock climbing it still only took just over an hour and a half to reach the rock feature called Devil’s Gate and the seals. Curiously there were also a lot of bumblebees around as well, often landing on clothing or in Keryn’s case on her hand and using their antennae to push around looking for what we think was either water or salt, no stings at least. There were dozens if not hundreds of lazy male fur seals relaxing in the sun at the haul-out, obviously enjoying the good weather. For the most part they ignored the watching people, only moving occasionally to get more comfortable or to cough. There was one fur seal that went for a swim and then got growled at when it came back on shore to find a siesta spot.
All up we had a good time. Perhaps my shoulders were a bit sore from carrying Alayna a lot of the way back but she did well for the most part. Lunch afterwards at the Blue bell cafe in Island Bay was certainly well deserved :).
