Seal Colony

The west coast of the south island of NZ is so wild (wild west – get it?). Some of the areas are so remote that you have to pay very close attention to your fuel levels or you might end up on the side of the road waiting to hitch a ride to the next petrol station.

Not far from Greymouth, there is a seal colony and it is a must see. It is protected pretty well, and as you might expect there are lots of tourists who stop along the road to see the seals. It is a short walk from the parking lot, and fortunately the walking path does not go too close to the colony. It is still an awesome sight though.

According to the posted information, seal pups are born in December and we saw quite a few babies. It was incredible. You can kind of see some of the pups in the video and photos, but they are hard to make out (click on the picture above, because you can see them much better in the enlarged photo). In the video, you can see some seals fighting – they are likely just flirting with each other, as the mating season starts almost immediately after the pups are born.


This was another one of those sights that is free but is worth a million bucks. It was an excellent experience and if we hadn’t gone on a 13 mile hike the day before, we would have walked a little further on to see more of the coast. I wish I could have just lounged on a rock like the seals. Alas, we had to drive further down the coast before it got much later.

J