Sea Seals (Canterbury) Half Moon Bay, South Island, New Zealand
By oliverjrj on 27-Jul-11. Waypoint GC311K1

As per the below link, this cache is archived to earthquake damage.

https://www.doc.govt.nz/parks-and-recreation/places-to-go/marlborough/places/okiwi-bay-half-moon-bay-area/things-to-do/tracks/ohau-stream-walk/

19 November 2019: Ohau Stream Walk closed
The Ohau Stream Walk is unsafe due to earthquake damage and is closed until further notice.

This is a long term alert.

First published on 23 December 2016. Last reviewed on 19 November 2019.

The path to this cache no longer exists, and should not be attempted. There is no intention to re-open it and due to damage to the stream with slips in the earthquake, seals no longer use the area either.
This cache should be archived so as not to encourage people into the area.
The CO hasn't been active for 5 years either.
I recommend this cache is archived

This geocacher reported that this geocache should be archived. A community volunteer reviewer has been notified.

So sorry but no chance here to stop and look at the seals. Even on Sunday they are working, very impressive. Greetings from Switzerland

The road area is slowly recovering, and certainly looking better than when I passed through at the end of March. Haven't had a chance to see if the site is still accessible but thought I would post while waiting for the stop-go folk to switch ours over

Just wanted to post a picture of the work going on by this cache to get the road and rail repaired. Lets hope the cache is accessible in the future.

We are sad to hear of the damage caused here by the earthquake early on Monday. Apparently the foreshore where the seals had their colony is obliterated by a huge landslide and presumably the stream access for the pups has gone too, besides which there will be no pups here again as the colony will have to establish itself elsewhere. At least we got to see it as it was, thanks to geocaching bringing us here.

We went to the pool up the hill first thing. When we got to the top there was a crowd of people from Malaysia there. They were laughing, talking, taking pictures and having a wonderful happy time. We could not understand a word of what they were saying but could not help but smile and laugh with them. I had never seen a tour group that was so joyous. After they left we took pictures and headed back down. There were no seal pups at the pool. However on the way down we spotted two large seal in the creek fighting each other. Finally one backed off and headed down. WE and others that we pointed him out to took pictures all the way down. George headed across the road to continue taking pictures of the many seals there and I pulled out the GPS to find the cache. It took a few minutes as the gps took me back and forth but never did stop right at GZ. Thanks for the hint. I soon joined George watching seals. - Zeke & George of Hot Spring, Arkansas, USA

Only a few people crossed the path so Paw could keep an eye on them while I searched everywhere.
If the coordinates are not more than ten meters off I'd say I'd looked everywhere

So many muggles, so little time... I'll try again on another trip...

Although there were no pups at the waterfall anymore, we were able to spot many of them taking a sunbath, playing and hanging around at the seaside.
What an amazing place - we could have spent hours here watching them.

#292 / @ 05.10.2016 12:20 / in: - / out: -

Team Northwood headed down to the South Island for two weeks travelling around the top half, and catching up with family. Printed a few caches to look for along the way as time allowed. We struggled for finds with the first few and then had more luck.

Our plane was delayed so this was the first stop on the way to Blenheim. Stopped at Ohau Point and then made the climb to the pool with the light fading. We were rewarded with 4-5 seals in the pool but did not have time to hunt for the cache.

We'd recommend a stop here, well worth it.

Could not find due to too many seals taking a swim in the same area. Will need to take a future vacation to come back and find the cache. Just hope the seal conservatives do not add to much security to access the trail. The Fury Baby Seals need the protection.

A great stop to stretch the legs and get the seal of approval for this cache. Took a while to find but go there in the end Thank you for placing and maintaining this cache from Mr Cuddly Brick; this most exellent day the 3 September 2016. Whoop whoop cache #1434.
Check out and subscribe to Cuddly Bricks Geocaching Adventures on YouTube.

Whata great place, tftc

Whata great place, tftc

Had a great day trip to Kaikoura. Walked around the southbay with the great view on the mountains and the ocean. But the highlight was this waterfall with all the cute baby seals playing in it. Great nature here. TFTC!

Too many muggles to have a proper look for the cache. But we saw lots of baby seals under the train bridge and in the pool at the waterfall. Thanks for showing anyway!

Took way too long to find this one. Had a look on our way in without luck and then had another go on the way out when we were eventually successful. Heaps of seals at the waterfall today. tftc

Those deals, playing in the waterfall are really a surprise... So close, the film will show this again when we are back home on Holland. Nice spot!

Wow, nearly forget to log this unforgetable place...

Thanks for showing...
Darmstädter

Incredible place! Thanks for the cache.

Field log.

found it on our journey in New Zealand with Lilli99 and xoxo! / TFTC

TFTC!
Such a nice location

Muggles everywhere as the seals played.

Loged as cg3 - 3 caching-girlies on NZ-tour, greetings from austria tftc

On tour in NZ! To safe time and space we signed with CG3 ( caching girls 3)!
Tftc and greetings from Austria

Logged as cg3. Thanks for showing.

I came over to New Zealand to meet my son, who is staying now for more than five months on the other side of the world. Our intension is, to travel now for 4 weeks through this fantastic land and visiting a lot of fine spots on both islands.
Met in Auckland, our first trip led us to the Far North with some spectacular locations. It was a lot of driving, but we think, it was worth the result.
The second part of our travelling route led us to the south. Going via Hamilton with some fine locations, Hobbiton was an absolutely must of our "unexpected journey" . Went then to Tauranga with a hard upclimb to Mt. Maunganui, visited Rotorua to see lot of vulcanic activities, have had a lot of fun with Zorbing and Claybird shooting and drove then to Taupa, to doing Skydiving.
Here we go: Napier with it's beautiful Art Deco district and the great Aquarium was the next stop.
Final destination on the North Island was Wellington, were we visited some great places and met some friends from Germany.
After crossing Cook Strait now we will follow the east side of the southern island down to the most southern point of New Zealand.
Blenheim with its wine yards, fantastic dolphin watching in Kaikoura, the story of earthquake in Christchurch, following the famous coastline down to Dunedin with its beautiful and interesting places as well as the nice city of Invercargill were our main spots on this part of our journey.
Of course, even if it is not our main activity during this holidays, we will looking for some caches, which are laying beside our route.
So this cache was one of those, we've picked up.
Many thanks to oliverjrj for this fine cache and best greetings from Germany.
**Geovortex** & *Nilito*
# 6126

We came near the GZ and The-Shredder just saw the place where it might be. And there we go. A quick find. TFTC Skyryser

Found this plce by coincidence as we were tired and needed a place to stop. Fortunately on the short walk we even found a cache. Along with Skyryser. TFTC The-Shredder

A quick find in the logical looking spot. Actually it was the second obvious looking spot but still obvious to the trained eye.
Thanks oliverjrj for the cache.

#9849

No luck at all

Seals?
Yes 1 pup drinking.
Cache?
No

Looked high and low, but no joy here. Bit late in the season to find seals up the stream, but plenty to watch along the coast here. Very entertaining. Lovely spot.

Gotcha on our second attempt. Had the kids on the hunt yesterday but they came up empty handed so we came back again this morning to have another look at the seals and the cache and I put my hand straight on it in the first place I looked. Only 2 seals yesterday and none today . Wrong time of year .
I came across this place nearly 4 years ago and the seals were all over the place and I was the only one there ( no wardens in those days ) today there's a steady stream of muggles heading up the track great place shame about the rubbish at the beginning of the track. Tftc

buggar

I must've driven past here 50 times, but we've never stopped before - today it seemed like a good spot to pull over and to let the kids stretch their legs. No seals to be seen up here at this time of the year, but a cache to find was a bit of a win. This took me waaaaaaaay too long to find! The GPSr was bouncing me all over the show, and the hint (which I resorted to after master 4 had spent about 7-8 minutes with me searching) was a bit nondescript given the obvious..... however after walking away and planning to log a DNF I took one more stab and saw it then.

Great spot to explore.

Found the micro and added a piece of paper for a log. Then continued up the trail to catch sighting of seal pups. Thanks for bringing us here. Fav for the location.
Chris & Renate from Ontario, Canada

And i found a another realy cool place thanks to caching! Saw 2 pups and few adults near the waterfall. On the beach alot of seals. Thanks 4 the cache and showing us this nice place.

A seal colony? Sure,. there probably won't be any seals there!
Fortunately I was wrong. It was fun to see the little ones just throw themselves about in the water, seemingly without a care.
It was raining a bit, so the only people about seemed quite in a hurry to get into the waterfall to see the little ones play or get back to the car.
I looked a wee bit on the way up to the waterfall, but decided I would give it a proper go on the way back...

On the way back, around where I would start looking, under the bridge, a kid was standing with his side to me, seemingly looking into to the rocks.. "is that a geocacher?", I wondered, but as I got closer, it was evident that he was.. relieving himself in the the general area I was going to start my search in..

Nope..not gonna look there either. Into the car and onwards..

Great spot. Lots of seals here today. TFTH

Muggles abound but we got there. Tftc. I could watch the baby seals all day.

3 weeks New Zealand - Day 5
We love the Babys. It's wonderful place.
Thank you for this Cache.
Greetings from Stuttgart - Germany

On me drive north along SH1,
this was one of the few safe places to roll to a stop and go exploring

I soon found out why this spot is such a popular spot to stop.
Even this late in the season, four seal cubs were hanging around and providing entertainment for us tourist types [^]

Am I really a tourist though ???
I only stopped here because of the geocache
Other than a cache on a map I did not know that such a fantastically, amazing spot existed on the speccy coastal drive

TFTC !!

An easy find with a lot of muggles nearby.
Said muggles were way too busy looking at the stars of the show to care what I was doing behind their backs

After the CHCH mega we are heading back to Picton today homeward bound. Was glad we got to stop here having seen this spot on the news. We were treated to a lot of seal pups frolicking in the pools. One even spoke to us, giving us a bit of a fright. Took a moment to locate cache. SL. TFTC.

On the road with Franzi5055.

Auf dem Rückweg vom Wasserfall, dieses Cache gesucht. Zuerst wollte unser Navi uns nicht richtig lotsen und bei grosser Muggle-Gruppe mussten wir immer wieder unsere Suche stoppen. Schlussendlich Cache relativ gut gefunden.
TFTC

#367

On tour with Del84
Today we passed this place on our way to Picton and visited the seals upstream as did two large touristgroups. So we had to quit looking whenever they walked along the path. And after my gps finally was happy with the satelites we found the small container rather quickly.
Thanks for placing!

Making our way North towards home after the Christchurch Mega with tmann421.

tmann had told me about this magic spot and it truly was. Took a few photos and even a video as we were fortunate enough to come across four seal pups today. tmann found the cache while I took the photos

TFTC oliverjrj. Worth an FP!

Another cache found with Just-Lookin as we were driving towards Picton and the ferry back home.

Quick search soon had the cache found - wonderful spot to visit again.
SL TFTC

This was the twelfth day of my fifteen day trip to go to the Christchurch Mega. Muggles got the best of me. TFTC.

Great cache, found by accident while visiting this wonderful seal nursery.

Tftc well sealed

Well was that fortuitous or luck but two seals just happened to be frolicking near the ground zone. Pity about the muggles around so had to play tourist and take photos of them. Then had a chance to find the cache - so with a little luck and the right angle found and muggled as I was just signing - quickly hid and had the camera out again to get high angle looking shots of the playful 'pups' in the water. While the muggles looked at them I put back and headed away.

On Tour together with Sabe73 as Team "TheBros" around South Island to visit some nice spots.
We also visited this location and could find the box almost quickly.
Thank you for showing us this place and of course for the Cache.
Greetings from Carinthia/Austria.
NoTrade

Zusammen mit PPJoe als Team *TheBros* in NZL mit dem Camper auf Tour. 6 Wochen Geocaching, Herz was willst Du mehr.
Der Cache konnte gut gefunden werden, wie man sieht werden die Dosen hier gut gewartet.
TFTC & LG aus Tirol/Austria/Europe

Muggle city today... Sigh. cheers from casa del hince TFTC

Unfortunately there weren't any seals at the waterfall, but the cache was not to hard to find

Quick disrupted look but too popular today.
Saw a couple of juveniles at the waterfall though. Thanks

So many big rocks, so many muggles, no GPS for me

We could not find the cache. But thank you for showing this place.

The cache up at the seals was big on our list on our little sojourn in Kaikoura. We only saw four, but the cache was in hand this time thanks to the efforts of Me&pedro and the Wombles. Thank you.

Stopped by for a quick search. but foiled by muggles. Worth the stop for the sight of three young seals at the pool. Really great! Thanks for the reason to stop.

Found with Vydra20. TFTC

Found on the way to Blenheim. Seals were amazing! TFTC!

Had a bit of a search between passing muggles but the GPSr wasn't settling and there are a number of the hinted item around GZ. However the seal pups were in a playful mood up at the waterfall so well worth the visit.

Found on our 25 day New Zealand South Island holiday.

Apologies for the late log but with little or no internet as we travelled and only super slow WiFi in van parks I decided to log all finds on my return home.

Grabbed this one while heading North.

TFTC

Quick find - not too many muggles. More seals than people today.

another quick grab while visiting seals. not many in the pool though! TFTC

Got it despite a less than helpful GPS

Driving Christchurch to Picton, picking up some more minutes for my 400 minute challenge. Most finds were park & grab. No trouble here. Thanks for the cache.

No luck, had to cut my search well short due to the amount of muggles.

Had me looking in the wrong place the entire time while right behind them with allaboutthatcache and gonna cache em all. Tftc

Nearly gave up as gps sent us searching. Found it in the end

Another cache found as part of our 2 week South Island holiday. Found with Allaboutthatcache and Biartch79. Tftc.

To many muggles around to find today. Lots of seal pups though

Found it nice place

Found on the way back down after visiting the mini seals. Quick because Mrs Wicm said "look under that one", and there it was.

Too many muggles not enough time

TFTC, This cache has been in our sights for some time and today was the day. Found flobberworm! and TheCornishTinMiner we made a fine team.
Thanks bumandworker for placing the cache.

Once we honed in on the location, I thought there was no way we were going to find it due to the large concentration of muggles just metres away. However, they were all quite distracted by two cute seal pups, so we managed to grab it without being seen! TFTC

On the way from Anakiwa to Kaikoura we stopped a few times for the amazing view and seals as well as for some caches. By arriving in Kaikoura there was even enough time for a short caching round in town .

A long trip later from Frankfurt via Dubai, Bangkok and Sydney to Christchurch we finally started our three and a half weeks vacation. We tried to see as much as possible from New Zealands nature and also look for some caches. During the whole trip we could even find more than 100 caches .
We finalized the round trip on our very first day by booking some great walk huts and decided to travel clockwise around the Southern Island. It's hard to say which were the highlights, so I would say the whole vacation is our highlight .
Many thanks to all cache owners for showing us a lot of great places! T4TC!

This was one of the over 100 caches in our vacation. After a long trip from Frankfurt via Dubai, Bangkok and Sydney to Christchurch Kansas City Shuffle and I finally started our three and a half weeks trip on the south Island of New Zealand. We tried to see as much as possible from the nature and also look for some caches.
We traveled clockwise around the Southern Island. It's hard to say which were the highlights, so I would say the whole vacation is our one highlight .
Many thanks to all cache owners from Germany!

Found it in the end. No seals at the waterfall, but plenty out on the rocks opposite the car park. Made for some wonderful photos TFTC!

Could not see this at all nor where there any seals. On the up side the waterfall is lovely and there were seals on the beach so all was not lost

Hit the road from Chch to Blenheim and back today to visit a close friends grave and to celebrate/honour what would have been his 26th birthday, we decided it would be a good reason to collect a few caches along the way.

On the drive back home we decided to stop and go for a wander up to the waterfall to see if there were any pups playing in the water. Sadly no seal pups, and with no visitors/muggles around we decided to grab another cache. Due to having no reception on my phone GPS was quite dicey, but miraculously it corrected itself 7m out! It was a bit of a scramble, and a lot of large rocks but we got the right one in the end. Signed the log and replaced in its hidey hole then went back out to watch the seal pups play out on the beach. Thanks for the hide in such a lovely area.

Touring the South Island for ten days. SL TFTC TNLN

What a lovely location. Nice straight forward find. Logged the cache and away. TFTC SL

Out of season for baby seals of course, but we enjoyed the walk. Wonder how the babies can make it so far up the boulder strewn stream. We met some disappointed tourists expecting to see seals - maybe the info boards need to make it clearer when they are not likely to be there. Cache was a straightforward find. Thanks for that, and for bringing us here.

Zeroed down to a promising location, but we couldn't find it. Only so long we could try with 3 young children.

What a wonderful start into the day.
Found this one quickly on our way to the waterfall.
Many seal puppies on the rocks but not yet up the stream.
Thanks.
Team KRHake from Karlsruhe/Germany

Just starting on this beautiful walk on a very beautiful day. Visiting from Indiana, USA. Enjoying this country very much.
TFTC

No seals today unfortunately. TFTC. Took nothing out, put sandflies in.

Must be getting good for this...could not get cache to load(no service) but we felt we had to get this one. We followed the blue dot until we were on top of the cache. Great hiding spot! The seals were very cute, especially the baby seals! TFTC!!!

Ahh what awesome caches I have seen on my travels this week , from fake logs, to mint tins stuck to posts, to nanos under benches to awesome tree climbing cache hides, his week has been an awesome time to check out the new caches and of course old!! It was great to see all the different places too, like nelson, and greymouth, and Blenheim of course!! Then there was the small tiny areas, where we stopped to see earthquake museums, with of course the ''rural' caches as I like to call them. then of course there was the significance of stop offs; like the bulla swing bridge, where I went, saw and conquered there and back twice, while dad stooof o the comfort of the flat grass, smiling, waving and taking pictures Funny, but the best part about that bridge was when the people who worked there, started to come across when I was I was about half way going back ,so they had to get past, so they tilted the bridge sideways, onto its side, so then I could get past, it was pretty scary, but awesome too!! Then the bridge bounced and went side to side and swung it was really awesome! Then as they walked to the other side they were jumping and swinging from side to side, it was great fun!!:)
But anyway the caches I encoun tered on my trip were rreally good, each one was different in some way, including popmacs mint trail series in the north island, which was a really neat idea!!
Anyway, I would like to say thanks tov all the great cache owners who took their time to place all these caches Thank you and well yeah TFTCs all round

The last day of nightowl19's holiday visit to the South Island with me and so a road trip down to Christchurch airport to meet an afternoon flight was in order. Leaving early so to get the most from our journey we voyaged South in search of seals; large, small and medium and were not disappointed, oodles of them. Took in a few caches on the way down too (of course) and a visit to the city to see the rebuilding progress. It's been just under 3 years since I last visited and 7 years for nightowl19 so lots has changed for both of us. Weather was distinctly average for most of the day, drizzle and a cool breeze kept it down, compared to earlier in our week, and the lucky North Island.
Great place for a cache. Walked to the waterfall but no seals there today. Magnificent fall of water anyway
T F T C

Found it and a great walk

No seals today That means that no muggles either! Made the find easily and then returned to the van. We are camping across NZ and finding all sorts of cool caches along the way. Greetings from California!

No seals at the end, but one playing right at GZ!