On a recent trip to Jack’s Bay we saw a large female and smaller female sea lion getting out of the water and heading reasonably quickly up the beach.

As we got closer we could see that there was another young female and two pups that had come out of the long grass to meet them. They all made their way up the bank and settled in for a rest, in the long grass,  right next to the road.  After a while the pups got restless and went down to the beach where they played in the stream, with each other, with sticks and kelp. What an amazing sight!! There was a small group of people watching and as usual (there is always one) a guy got a bit too close.  He was taking photos with a tripod, if one of the sea lions had felt threatened and lunged at him, I’m not sure he would have been able to move fast enough! This is their home and we are extremely privileged to be able to see them so close but one day I’m going to get great photos of someone being chased and maybe bitten by a sea lion!

The two pups were so cute!!!!   Off they go up the path for a rest, in the long grass beside the road.Just beautiful, we thought maybe the smaller sea lions where last years cubs, they all seemed to enjoy getting their photo taken  The pups went back to the beach to play.

This pup was playing with kelp.

   The following day we had family visiting and took them to Jack’s Bay to see if the same sea lions were there. See part two of this post for more photos.

How to get to jack’s bay. From Owaka turn left on to the Pounawea road, turn right to Jacks Bay and Blowhole, follow this road and cross the Hina Hina bridge, then left along the side of the beautiful Catlins lake (see post coming soon). Jacks bay is about 8km on a mostly gravel road from Owaka.