August 23rd 2016: Wildness

I don't know about you, but I couldn't get the southern right whale visit out of my head last week. In fact it played on my mind so much that I started leaping each time my phone beeped with a sighting of them and off I'd go – hunting a better shot of them along our coastline.

To make matters worse I had the conflict one day when a text came in telling me the tohora pair were at Blackhead, followed shortly after by a text from our friends at Dive Otago letting me know about a leopard seal on the beach at Smaills. I was torn between wildness. I decided the leopard seal would take the whole day to recover – chilling out as nonchalantly as a travelling hippie who just so happens to also be an apex predator. The tohora on the other hand are notoriously transient so I gave chase. I'm glad I did. The couple were as playful as ever with each other and one even breached a couple of times right in front of me. Pretty impressive to see these giant creatures leaping for joy along our beaches.

Hydrurga leptonix is also a supreme traveller – just arrived from the sub-antarctic after a super feat of endurance. Just think about that for a minute ... this guy above has just arrived after swimming directly from the ice. They're regular visitors to Dunedin these days – they just stop off to dine on penguins and seals and recharge. Actually scientists believe that 50% of the leopard seal's diet is actually krill, although penguins and seals definitely make the menu. Either way this one looked happy to be sitting back, stretching and baring its teeth for passersby in the late afternoon sunshine.

Good to see a few small winter swells this past week and some of the old surf breaks firing back into life. More of that to come this week.

See you at the beach ... Derek

PS As you might recall, for the past few years I joined forces with surfer, mountaineer and writer Paul Hersey to tell the story of New Zealand's merino high-country stations. The hardback coffee-table book is available from October 31 in all good book stores and Merino Country is available for pre-order right here.