Baby seals

Today was scheduled in case we couldn't do the whales yesterday, so no firm plans other than visiting the baby seal pool at Ohau (more later).

We woke up having all slept fairly well, though torrential rain on the camper van roof had woken all of us at different times. It fined up about 8 fortunately. The heating had kept the camper warm - probably better than many of the motel systems we had experienced which often used fan heaters. None of us had been able to locate the light switch for the toilet in the night, making using it a little tricky. Adults showered in the shower block, which had plenty of warm water. I was receiving texts from home regarding the Forest game, first of the season away at Brighton - they ended up losing 1-0, probably a sign of a long hard season ahead. At least the England cricket team going well, almost won the fourth test in 2 days like the third and should seal the Ashes tomorrow fingers crossed.

Final checks done on the campers and we were off, 20km north to a short ten minute walk from the highway to a waterfall pool where baby seals are left by their mums to play. We got there and there were 4 seals swimming around in the water and playing with each other. A couple of them swam over to the rocks and sat up as if posing for our cameras. For a while we were the only people there.

We carried on and all along the road beside the sea there were seals on the rocks and on the roadside verges. We stopped about 25 minutes before Blenheim to have a coffee and cake at a small cafe - had a very tasty custard cream/viennese whirl cross. We decided not to stop as intended in Blenheim as the cafe lady said Picton was nicer so decided to head straight there for a late lunch. However, Ed started to deel sick due to the windy rods coming into Blenheim so we did park up and have a quick walk around, visiting a stationery/book shop to buy some sketching materials for the kids. Then back on the road another half hour to Picton. We foudn the top 10 campsite quite easily and walked across the marina and the coat hanger bridge into the main town centre.

We had lunch at the sister restaurant of where we had stopped earlier, Oxleys, a bar in an old building on the Marina front. We then had a wander through some shops including one called seaside gems. The owner was from the UK and now lived in St Ives, but had had a jewellery shop on the King's Road and Putney High Street. We looked at some rings that had been made by another ex pat lady from Spalding, who's brother had a shop in Sleaford! He described how there was quite an expat community of semi retired folks in Picton who spent summers in the UK and NZ. If we were there for longer he offered to take us out fishing on his boat - offer still available next time we visit!

He pointed out the seals playing in the harbour and said if the water is clear you can see big rays in the harbour (not clear enough today when we looked). We went out on a pier to look at the seals and whilst the others went back to the campsite I went round to a further pier to look closer, The seals seemed very relaxed, swimming around and rolling in the water. Every so often they disappeared then a dozen or so fish would pop right up out of the water with a seal chaisng them and generally eating one (with seagulls then closing in to try nd steal a piece).

Back on the campsite the kids were playing on the trampoline and see saw and I played some table tennis in the games room with them before watching TV with Ed - a program on sharks. We cooked some food in the communal kitchen, much easier than using the camper van and then retired to watch another dvd.Read more