Andrew Spencer Photography

Ohau Falls seal pups

These dudes are turning into a Kaikoura tourist attraction of their own.

Each winter a load of seal pups from the Ohau Point seal colony use the Ohau stream and waterfall area as their nursery for the day. Seems like there are hundreds up there this winter, most days they are all the way up the creek and there will be a group playing in the pool at the falls. Apparently they head up there while the folks go out fishing for the day. Makes sense, it’s safe from sharks and orcas and there are plenty of humans to keep them entertained.
They have no fear of the people who head up the five minute walk to see them, some of the pups will come over and have a sniff then head off and put on a show in the pool.

I went up to the falls with a Bride and Groom a couple of weeks ago and there was people and seals everywhere. One kid had even taken a ball up for them to play with.

Going to be interesting when these seals are great big and not scared of humans!

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Kaikoura New Wharf – no more.

Call me old fashioned but progress doesn’t always seem like a step for the better. I’m thinking about the New Wharf, it ‘s been part of the Kaikoura landscape since around 1909 (The Old Wharf is around the corner and wasn’t up to the job of a busy town so the New Wharf was built). For all these years it has jutted out into the ocean amongst the lime rocks braving the forces of nature.

The fishing careers of countless kids have started here, some of them using the wharf to land their catches when they grew up and became fishermen. It has been used for work and play for 90 years.

I spent hours at the wharf and made 100s of images of it and from it. It was a place where you could almost feel the history. The creaking, gnarly planks had weathered a thousand storms, strained under 1000s of tons of cargo.

The Wharf is the first place to see the sun in the morning and the last to loose it at night and I would be there. I would go there in the middle of the day and I would go there in the middle of the night. I would go and watch the angry ocean pummel the poor old Wharf, I would paddle under it on my kayak.

It was one of the most favourite places for wedding images with wedding couples loving it almost as much as me. Standing on the Wharf on a clear day you are surrounded by an ocean of blue sea and sky. On a rough day there was the rustic timber of the decking contrasting with the beautiful people.

But the New Wharf was getting old, the osteoporosis in it’s piles meant it was no longer safe and something had to be done. For months now there have been cranes swooping over the Wharf, picking pieces off it like a shag dismembers a fish. There was just a carcass. There are noises of pile drivers putting in new pieces, the foundations of some concrete pier that Kaikoura is soon to inherit.

I’m sad, I can’t even look now, I don’t want to know what is going on down there and when I drive past I look straight ahead so I can’t see what is happening.

And I can’t help thinking that surely the New Wharf could have got some new legs, a hip replacement or whatever it took to make it strong again. I’ve lost a good old friend.

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