New Zealand Fur Seal.
Looking north to the Kaikoura ranges, seal in the foreground.
Terraced beach.
This is the entry way to the Kaikoura seal colony area, south of the Kaikoura township itself. Even on the beach closest to the car park there are a few seals.
The broad, flat rock area is easy and safe to walk along, but the rock pools are mostly devoid of really interesting life (there are various tiny shellfish, but no crabs or fish, for example). A few seals are sunning themselves away from the main group.
This is a breeding colony, so the seals are all potentially extremely aggressive. With seals on the Red Rocks beach at Wellington, which is a bachelor colony, I tend to be fairly casual about getting close to them. I wouldn't take that risk here. Seals can move faster on land than you'd think, and have big, yellow, teeth with a tetanus-shot-required bite.
New Zealand Fur Seal.
Looking north to the Kaikoura ranges, seal in the foreground.
Terraced beach.
New Zealand Fur Seal.
Volcanic rock foreshore.
Volcanic rock foreshore.
Volcanic rock foreshore.