Sunshine & Seals at Cape Foulwind

Friday 23 January

Westport = WETport - or so it seemed! I popped out at 8am and loved seeing the sun’s faint rays echoing the shape of the driftwood teepee in the early morning light. Nickie & I walked up to the Buller Estuary pier wall along the beach, inspected the sad memorials to those who died crossing the bar and marched back an hour or so later, sneaking into the caravans just as the rain hit… and stayed hammering down for several hours! Said a quick hello to Max & Maggie on the way in - they are so cute!

Nickie & Louis went into town for a swim later on, while I did some blogging and Russ got on with work. After lunch it was still pretty soggy but Russ was stir crazy so mid-afternoon we wrapped up warm & watertight and headed over to Cape Foulwind to walk the path from the lighthouse up to the seal colony & back.

About 3.5km each way, there & back, the rain stopped and the clouds began to part as we neared the seal colony and we had a wonderful time watching the seal families snoozing on the rocks and playing in the surging sea below us. It was fascinating witnessing the semi-peaceful coexistence between seals and gulls on the rocks below - just the occasional lunge or squabble! The sea was pretty rough and the older seals swam in the crashing waves quite nonchalantly - we followed a youngster sliding in trepidatiously for a swim - rather them than me!

The walk back was gloriously sunny & hot, and full of weka encounters! We were even fortunate to come across two dark fluffball weka chicks which were totally adorable!

Heading back to RUSSF we could see along the cliff coastline towards Carter's Beach and decided to try and find the hole in the rock I’d seen on a FB Reel, but which now proved rather elusive! But after a bit of back & forth, we found the track down to the cove with the waves booming through two cave arches in the rock - tres cool!

Louis, Nickie and Russ went climbing up all over it - my knees were feeling a tad cronky so I stayed on the sand snapping pics. At one point he sat right above the hole as the waves came crashing through and nearly drenched him!

As we climbed back up to RUSSF we were surrounded by a fabulous rainbow of hydrangeas, monbretia and agapanthus. I loved the white one which was concealing a mail box... i wonder if they ever receive any deliveries!

Back to Banjo and we had the pleasure of meeting Mike from the "Leopards Go Wild" YouTube channel who we have been following for advice, info & inspiration since before we started travelling.

Flat chook for dinner and a chill evening as we were all a bit tired!