That’s right, there are baby seals in this stream. We drove back from Marlborough Monday and stopped mid-way near Kaikoura at Ohau bay, where a freshwater stream runs into the ocean. It’s the nursery for the many seal mama’s that are out fishing and gossiping on the rocks. All the seal pups come here to play where the Orca wales can’t eat them, hundreds of them splashing in the water and posing on the rocks. It’s even more dramatic than an Alaskan salmon run, if that’s possible.

Every 3-4 days the pups go back to the ocean, somehow locate Mommy seal, nurse, then make their way back up the stream.

They move like Amazonian mud fish, humping along on their fins and back flippers. They play in pools all along the stream, but their Mecca is a big pool with a waterfall, just a ten minute walk up from the ocean. It’s absolutely writhing with baby seals. They’re fabulous little fellows, cavorting about, playing with leaves, jumping over one another, playing king of the waterfall. And the wonderful thing is that they’re not shy. Dozens of tourists gawk at them all day long, and they just go about their astonishingly cute baby seal business.