Seals at Red Rocks

I know its been a few weeks since our last update, I'm sorry... We started work which has focused a lot of our attention over the last couple of weeks, but we are still enjoying the evenings and weekends to explore. The weekend weather has been variable, but fortunately we have gotten at least one gorgeous winter day per weekend. This gave us a chance to continue to check out the beaches around our new home. We had heard about a seal colony that winters about an hour walk from Owhiro Bay in an are called 'Red Rocks'.

Red rocks is an easy walk out, along the tide line from the parking lot. During the week if you have a 4x4 or just don't care about your car much, you can drive along a rough 'road' much of the way there. You'll also find a few remaining 'Baches' which are basically old shacks built 60 or more years ago and seem to have no electricity or running water.

The beach around Owhiro Bay are black sand sand or small pebbles and like many beaches in the area have extensive amounts of kelp sea weed. drift wood and shells at the high tide line. Frequently you will find dried out Paua shells or sea snails. After 45 minutes or so, you can start to see a large rock outcropping which explains the name of the walk. I don't know what kind of geological anomaly caused this when all of the surrounding cliffs are much darker, but its quite striking.

You can smell the seals before you see them. During the winter months, bachelor seals who didn't find a mate, hang out on the rocks like a bunch of teenagers, sunbathing, sleeping and hunting until the spring comes and they can try their luck again.