Victory Beach
Whilst my family were visiting (Dec2006/Jan 2007), we decided to take the opportunity to join one of my closest friends on a nature walk. Nik, a Veterinary nurse, had told us of this walk and promised to take us when she was able. With the Christmas holiday some spare time was available to us all. With Heath safely cared for by her husband (since it was a hot day, and we were in a restricted area where dogs are not permitted) we set off. It meant over an hour driving as there is only one road into the region we needed to set out on our walk from. We drove out along the Peninsula, around Hoopers Inlet, across the road to Cape Saunders and on around the Papanui Inlet. Victory Beach was an hours walk away.
We walked across peat bogs, along the estuary’s low tide line, on soft sand, pock marked with the holes left by retreating crabs. Some were still out scavenging and boldly dared us to pass – but at about 5cm across, they posed little threat! This bridge reminded me of the children’s tale, the Three Billy Goats Gruff!
Nik, also a keen photographer, had shown us a picture of this gate, so loving its photogenic qualities, I had to take a snap and share. Weather-beaten and almost beyond repair, it still stands as guardian to the pasture beyond! On we tramped, soon coming to a range of dunes. Nik warned us to remain alert as the dunes often had inhabitants. We were on the path of the elusive Hooker Sea Lion. This was one of their favourite places to congregate and for their young to be left while they went to feed. As we walked we noticed people coming back from the beach, a mile or more away. When they neared us, we asked whether they had seen any sea lions. We knew they had because we had watched in horror as they broke ALL the rules close to one.
Yes, said the man, there was a ‘young female’ on the beach ahead, and two more a little further on. Nik gently said that in future they needed to walk the landward side of any sea lions they met. The man, very tersely commented that he ‘knew about sea lions and the one they walked close to was too far from the water to be worried!’ We left them and made no further comment until they were well and truly out of earshot!
Firstly the rules. NEVER walk between a sea lion and the water, EVER. They will charge if they feel like it, and despite their bulk, they can move fast. NEVER get closer than 20m from a sea lion, EVER. Use binoculars, telephoto lenses, any other means of getting the more intimate views we all seek, but stay well back.
The man was wrong. When we got within range we stopped and looked carefully. Unless young female sea lions have male sexual organs, this was quite clearly a juvenile male and courtesy of the previous visitors, he was in a very testy mood!
As we got closer, so he reared up, bellowing at us. We retreated and waited almost 10 minutes as he watched us. We then moved up into the dunes, keeping him within sight and looking out for any others who might be sleeping amongst the tussock, before passing him and moving back onto the deserted beach. For the record - female Hooker sea lions are smaller, a pale sandy colour all over and just as feisty as the males.
Having taken care not to disturb him further, it wasn’t long before he was back on his back, sleeping in the warm sunshine! Sea Lions only come onto sandy beaches. It is very unusual to see a sea lion on a rocky beach – or for that matter, a fur seal on sand. (We had passed a corpse of a seal a while earlier and paused to inspect it more closely when we returned, before the incoming tide moved it on to another place.)
The views from Victory Beach were amazing and the colours, vivid. The sand was fine and almost white, soft to touch, not sharp or gritty. It was like walking on a soft mattress! Soon we spied our second sea lion, sleeping a lot closer to the water.
Older than the first, this one wasn’t so easily spooked. He remained quite calm as we walked across the spit to get a slightly better view of him. The tide had turned so we couldn’t walk on to find the others we knew would be there. This one, perhaps 2 years old, was getting the mane associated with the full-grown male Hooker. They are enormous beasts when fully grown, with the males weighing in at between 300 and 320 kilograms. These boys were perhaps half that and only 2m long.
He clearly grew too warm, so lifted a flipper to benefit from the cooling breeze as it whipped across the water. A seagull lingered close to him, wading in the shallows, finding food. It was in almost all the photos I took!
We left this chap enjoying his rest, aware that with the incoming tide, he would have to move soon and that if we tarried, we’d be swimming back to the car! As it was, we all ended up getting wet, to one degree or another! I chose to wade in the brackish water, enjoying its warmth and watching shoals of fish as they skittered through the crystal clear currents. I took a photo but its none-too-clear. I also watched tiny flounders as they kicked up clouds of sand underwater, moving from one hiding place to the next. It was lovely!
Pausing part way back to the car, I looked back at where we’d been. We still had an hour or more to walk, but I didn’t feel tired – just elated. I hadn’t a clue how far we’d walked but later estimated it was close to 8km in total, and walking through sand and water for that distance, it was quite a work-out!
Looking over toward Cape Saunders, the lighthouse wasn’t visible, but the dark swathes of trees made a stark contrast to the green fields and the blues of the sky and sea.
The little black dots on the water are hundreds of Black Swans. Where they’d been on the outward trip I have no idea – perhaps resting on this little island while the tide was low. However, on the way back, they were out there, feeding and preening, displaying the white feathers they hide under their wings.
As we reached the car, I had to get a photo of a semi-closed ice plant beside the water. Growing in salt marshes and on dunes, these daisy-like succulents are everywhere. They open in bright sunlight and close as it moves away. (They are a member of the mesembryanthemum family) Just as I was trying to focus, the bee who’d been collecting pollen and whose legs were over-burdened flew away! So all I can show is the flower! In all, the walk, with the birds, fish and mammals we saw, was well worth the effort and yes, we all deserved the ice cream we stopped for in Portobello, on our way home!