Kaikoura

We played tourist this past week.  Got together with Elder and Sister Smith, they are serving as Member Leadership Support missionaries, in Rangiora.  They, like us, don't have a lot of interaction with other senior couples. They will go back to their home in Tremonton, Utah this December. They are wonderful, sweet people.  They will be greatly missed here.

We went north about 3 hours from Christchurch to a coastal town called Kaikoura.  I will let the pictures do most of the talking.  All up and down the coast, in and around Kaikoura, there are seal colonies full of New Zealand fur seals.

The highlight and main purpose of our trip was to see where the baby seals hang out.  Twenty minutes north of Kaikoura there is a little river that comes off the mountain that empties into the ocean.  You hike maybe 10 minutes up a little trail along the stream until you get to a waterfall.  That is where the babies hang out.  Every 2 or 3 days they go back to the ocean and their mothers nurse them.  So, so cool!

This is where the trail starts, but it is not as bad as it looks.

Nice easy trail

Baby seal just off the trail.

Picture of 3 fat babies heading back to the falls after they have been
down to the ocean after a visit to their mums.

It is really hard to tell how many seals there are in this little
pool, but there are a lot!

Different day.  more flowers.