It is now Tuesday, February 12 in this series that started on January 29 with our departure from the US. The actual date of this posting is later because it has taken me quite a bit of time to catch up with recording and posting these entries. The first few days kept my mind fully occupied with all the new things to absorb about this vacation. Then there were the internet challenges. We subscribed to an internet server that is common throughout New Zealand at the TOP 10 parks where we stay most often. We have encountered a few parks that don’t have internet or don’t have very good internet service. So I post these messages when I can.

We are leaving Westport this morning, driving south along the west coast of the South Island. Our first stop is just a kilometer from our camp. The Westport Lighthouse sits high on a hill overlooking the Tasman Sea. A trail from there leads to a seal colony. The trail is up and down hills as we tread along the sea cliff overlooking the beaches. Some storm clouds are bringing occasional showers and the wind is whipping up a fine surf. I could stand for hours and watch waves wash up on shore or break on rocks. The sea is a fascinating play of energy and motion. This turns into a pretty good walk (or tramp as they call it locally). We cross three styles as we move from one plot of land to the next. It took a little over an hour to reach the seal colony. There is a large platform well above the colony which allows us to look over without disturbing the seals. Louise walks out on the platform and says, “Oh, no! There are no seals.”

After a few moments, she notices movement on the rocks below and then we begin to see seals. There are not huge numbers, just a scattering of several dozen adults. But the real treat is the baby seals. There are young seals playing all over the rocks. We enjoy watching them climbing over the rocks. Some are testing their skills walking along the length of a large horizontal log. Others are nursing or sleeping. The adults are doing their best to ignore the young ones and get some sleep. Occasionally one of the adults will wade into the surf to find food or cool off. We enjoy watching the seals and the surf. Finally as another line of dark clouds approaches we decide to return to the lighthouse and our campervan. We pick up a little more rain on the way back but not the drenching I’m expecting.

Back at the campervan we fix sandwiches for lunch and then head on south toward Franz Josef and the Franz Josef glacier. It is 330 kilometers which is 200 miles, not that far to drive in the US but on these roads, it is late in the afternoon when we pull in and park. Most of our route had been in intermittent light to moderate rain and on wet roads. When we arrived I got out of the driver’s seat, hooked up the electric and turned on the gas and then flopped on the couch to rest my back. The driver’s seat of these campervans are not comfortable. About 20 minutes later, someone came by to tell me that the headlights were still on.