Sea lions

A beautiful day dawned and so we decided to travel to the northern end of the Catlins area. The temperature had climbed to 28° by the time we reached Surat Bay. The walk along the beach here is interesting because there are always sea lions in residence, loafing about on the beach, flicking sand on themselves to keep cool and if in a group the young ones snap and play fight together.
Although bulky they can put on a bit of speed for a distance and so it is always advisable to keep at least 10 metres from them. We had watched this fellow who was about 3 metres in length and goodness knows how much he weighed gallump himself out of the water and up to the soft sand, all the time keeping an on eye us.

In the attached collage is a rather poor photo of two juveniles snapping and snarling at each other - perhaps they were complaining about the wind as it was quite hard to stand up let alone hold a tablet still!
Also a seal enjoying the sun yesterday