A Seal of Approval

---

With only about 2 hours' drive to Christchurch and 5 nights still remaining of our campervan rental, for once we didn't move on too far. The makeshift campsite we used last night was nothing special so we were delighted when no more than about 20 minutes down the road, we found a picnic area that looked promising. There were no facilities but the rocky terrain reminded me of the areas where we had spotted seals from the train on our way down to Christchurch before.

Pulling over by the waterfront, I went off to investigate. It didn't take me long to discover not one but three sleepy seals flopped out on the rocks just matter of metres away from my lookout point. I didn't dare go any closer for fear of disturbing their gentle slumber but when Glynn came over to join me, we jointly edged closer trying desperately not to make any noise. At one point, Glynn trod on some dried out seaweed and the crispy crackle was enough to rouse the seal closest to him. We had heard that seals can sometimes get aggressive if they feel threatened by your presence so he froze on the spot and waited to see what would happen. Rather than be angry at this rude awakening, the seal simply opened its eyes, checked Glynn was at a safe distance, sighed and then rolled over and went back to sleep!

We decided there and then that we would spend the remainder of the day there so we parked the van up in the best possible position, slid the side door open and passed many a happy hour watching a small army of seals drag themselves out of the water and hurl themselves across the rocks in search of a prime spot to bask in the sun. Occasionally a seal would pop its head up in the water and then swim around for a bit but by and large all these big lumps of blubber did was snooze for hours and hours.

Later in the evening, another Escape campervan pulled into the picnic area to stay for the night and we were pleasantly surprised when the 2 Canadian guys came over to talk to us. We've seen a few other Escape vans on our travels of the South Island but I have to tell you that our Fellowship of the Frog van is by far the coolest paintwork on any of them! As the sun went down, the sky was bedeckt with pinks and purples and still the seals kept on sleeping. What a hard life, eh?

---

Photos

Hubby and Blubby
Glynn shows just how close you can get to these gorgeous wild seals.

Seal Siesta
It's a hard life being a seal.

Frogs and Gulls
Glynn took delight in throwing breadcrumbs onto the roof of the van and watching the seagulls fight over them. Boys.

ZZzzzzzzzz
Another action-packed day for Flipper.

Double Dose
Jude gets up close and personal with a couple of the lethargic locals.

Tummy Tickler
Couldn't get close enough to do it for real ;-)

On the Rocks
Can you believe that the seals could actually climb these rocks? They don;t exactly move grafefully out the the water though and Glynn reckons it's because they're really half dog, half fish!

Frogs and Seals
The Fellowship of the Frog about as close as we could park it to the seals. At one point, a seal was no more than 5 metres away while we sat in the van watching!

Pink Sunshine
Candyfloss anyone?