Seals

Two days ago we set out on a road trip to Golden Bay.  It's about a two hour drive but it's always hellish sitting in the back of a small car with the girls when it's over about 10 min.  The first thing we did was stop by a cafe in a town about 20 minutes from Golden Bay.  It was nice stopping for a big plate of nacho's after a long ride through the winding roads.  Just 5 minutes from the town was the second clearest water in the world.  I don't know how they judged the first and second clearest but it was so clear you could barely see any water at all.  The next thing we did was going to a charming little village by the side of the bay and ate delicious chocolate.  Part of the bay is made up of the Farewell Spit, the longest sandbar in the southern hemisphere.  You could barely make out the end of the spit in the distance, which had a light house on it.  At this point in our journey it was getting late so we headed to our five star suite we were staying in for the night.  At least that's the happy place I went to as we were staying there, it was actually the worst place I'd ever stayed in.  It smelled bad, looked bad, and I couldn't drink the water.  I was scared to sleep but managed to rest for a few hours.  The next morning mom captured a cockroach encouraging us to leave.  One good thing about staying in that cabin was that it helped me appreciate my lifestyle more.  In the morning we went back to that small town next to the bay and got some breakfast.  Afterwards we went towards the Farewell Spit.  The walk was very scenic, through a shire with lots of animals and crap on the trail.  What I personally liked about it was the fact that you didn't have to wear shoes because most of it was through sand.  We hiked to the sand dunes, right next to the spit on the beach, and a couple people walked up to us and said there were a bunch of baby seals swimming in a tide pool beside the ocean.  So we went to where the seals were and just sat there watching them for like 2 hours.  It was really cool because they were just like little puppy dogs.  They were really curious and would flop over to you and sniff your feet.  One even let dad and I pet it.  It was a really cool experience.  At one point I left my shoes for a while and one flopped up and put it in it's mouth.  Dad told me to let it sniff it until dollar signs flashed before his eyes as the seal started dragging it back towards the water.  We had to corner it and take the shoe back.  After that I'd run around with the shoe as the seal chased me, it was a lot of fun.  They're normally curious happy creatures unless you get between them and the ocean.  I tried this and on started charging at me, trying to drive me away from the area.  I reluctantly left, not wanting to get rabies or something.  When we were done playing with the seals, we played around on the sand dunes for a while and then left for home.  On our way back to the house we're staying in now, we made a couple side stops with amazing views of the bay.  Make sure to check the bottom of the page for pictures of the baby seals.