Sea Lions

We never thought we could equal our experience with the penguins.  But we did.

At Curio Bay...very near where we saw the penguins...we were down on the beach one morning, and look who came ashore!

A male sea lion marched up the beach, lay in the sun, then rolled in the sand, and flipped onto his back like our dog Hershey.

Who could top that?  Well, the next day we did.  

 We drove to the Point Waipapa Lighthouse…

…the farthest point south on New Zealand’s South Island.

Out on the beach we saw not one…but two…sea lions sunbathing in the sand.

As we were watching them, out of the ocean popped another sea lion.  We thought we had a threesome, but no.

The mother marched over to another corner of the beach and woke up her pup.

Unlike the fledgling penguins, this young one was a real cutie.

(On the advice of the New Zealand Park Service, we never got closer than 20 feet from the sea lions.  Nonetheless, they paid us no mind and seemed to care less that we were there photographing them close up.)