Walking Wellington Part 2: Seals near Wellington

The weather has been very rainy lately so I have had to squeeze outdoor adventures into the few good days.  As such I've been out to the Red Rocks Reserve twice in the last couple weeks; once by myself during the week and then again this past weekend with Ross.  From May through October each year there is a colony of New Zealand Fur Seals out past the red rocks around Sinclair Head, hence the multiple recent trips.

The reserve is easy to get to by bus from downtown, though watch the time.  I missed the last bus one day and ended up walking the 3.5 miles home.  It wasn't a bad walk but I'd already covered a lot of ground that day.  The walk itself is a very easy and follows the beach on a 4-wheel drive road.  The gate to the road is only closed on Sundays, so every other day you will be sharing the track with cars.  You get to see the rugged southern coast and, if the weather is nice, you can see the South Island.    

To get to the seals, you have to walk around the point in this picture.

This is actually Island Bay (east of Red Rocks Reserve) but I thought that it was a nice bus stop view...

Snow-capped mountains on the South Island.

The red rocks are volcanic pillow lava that formed about 200 million years ago underwater.  The red color is due to iron oxide.  There are two Maori stories related to the red color as well.  In one, Kupe, a famous Polynesian explorer, had a shellfish (paua) clamp on his hand and his blood stained the rocks.  In the other story, the daughters of Kupe cut themselves in their grief over their father's absence and their blood stained the rocks.

Red Rocks - they are more impressive in person.

Now that I have put in the obligatory, pretty scenery pictures on to the main attraction: Seals!  The New Zealand fur seal has come back from the brink of extinction (caused by hunting by Europeans and Maori) and there are now around 200,000.  They are quite large with the females reaching up to 1.5 m (almost 5 feet) and the males getting up to 2.5 m (a little over 8 feet).  The Maori name for fur seals is kekeno, which means 'look-arounds'.

The combination of a pleasant walk and the prospect of getting to watch seals play in the water or laze around in the sun has earned this trek a place on my 'repeatable walks' list.  I will have to make sure to get out there again before the end of October-ish so that I can see the seals again before they take off for the season.