Red Rocks Seal Colony

The walk starts at Owhiro Bay on Wellington's south coast and follows an unsealed road along the shore for about three kilometres to Pariwhero, the Red Rocks - pillow lava about two hundred million years old, coloured deep red by iron oxides, with two Maori traditions explaining the colour, one involving Kupe's daughters and one his own blood. Beyond the rocks the coast continues to Sinclair Head, where male New Zealand fur seals haul out through the winter - typically May to October, mostly bulls resting between breeding seasons, sometimes a hundred or more lying among the boulders. Numbers drop right off in summer, so a January visit often finds none. The rule is twenty metres and never between a seal and the sea; they look inert and are quick, and bites happen. The coast is exposed to the southerly straight off the Southern Ocean, so it can be calm or brutal with little warning.

What you actually see

• Pariwhero - red pillow lava around two hundred million years old.
• The seal haul-out - male fur seals at Sinclair Head, in winter.
• The exposed coast - Cook Strait and the South Island across the water.
• The gravel road - the flat three kilometres in from Owhiro Bay.

When to go

May to October for the seals - in summer there are usually none. Check the wind: a southerly makes this walk miserable and the sea comes over the road.

Honest expectations

Stay twenty metres from seals and never get between one and the water. The road is shared with 4WDs and trail bikes. There is no shelter, no water and no shade. Summer visitors often see no seals at all.

Nearby

Owhiro Bay and the south coast road are at the trailhead; central Wellington is fifteen minutes away.