Where's Grayleen?

Kayaking Abel Tasman Park has to rank as one of my favorite travel experiences so far. And while the three days of endless golden sand beaches and water-carved rocks were pretty awesome, there’s really one simple reason for its very high ranking: fur seals!! We came at the perfect time of year, when the adorable seal pups were at their most playful and curious. We came across hundreds of them nursing, splashing around, and generally just being fur seal pups.

They were particularly curious about us, and became braver and braver. First they just did quick swim-by looks. Then they would stop to poke a head up before darting off. Then they came over to sniff the hands we put in the water. Then they started brushing up against our hands to get pets. Finally, four times we even had one climb up on our kayak for a really close look. Particularly adorably, one that we took for a ride on the kayak (we named him “Sam”) poked his little face in the water several times to look at his friends. I imagined him being like “Look at me! I’m on a boat!” No doubt he was the cool kid in the seal colony that day.

He's so cute!! I'm bringing him home with me!

A truly incredible experience.

As a side note: This would not have been possible had we not found Golden Bay Kayaks. Of the six to ten kayak outfitters that serve Abel Tasman Park, Golden Bay Kayaks is the only one that allows you to kayak in the northern half of the park. The northern part of the park was by far our favorite part and was where we spent several hours hanging out with the fur seal pups. Since all of the other kayaks are restricted to the southern part and the tour boats stick to the southern part as well, we had the water and the seals to ourselves. Indescribably beautiful and amazing. While there is also a seal colony on Tonga Island further south, it is constantly surrounded by boats and guided kayak tours– cool to see the seals there as well but just incomparable.

More pics from Abel Tasman here.