Jellyfish

On a recent Sunday, our nephew, who is working for a few months at a farm an hour and a half from here, spent the day and went to church with us. After church, we went to the Kaikoura Peninsula. We walked across the top, enjoying a beautiful overcast day.

This seal pup was along the walkway, just as we started up the cliff.

The view from halfway to the top. This is the bay in front of Kaikoura, on the north side of the Peninsula.

Walking along the the top of the peninsula. Little Miss was sound asleep when we arrived, so her daddy carried her till she woke up and wanted a snack. Then, I took her and Gayle went back to get the van and take it around to the end of the trail.

See all the black specks on the white rocks? Those are seals.

We made it to the overlook above South Bay! This is the other side of the headland on which you go back down to sea level.

And when we arrived at sea level, the boys who got there first had a surprise for us: They had found a jellyfish on the beach! In real life, the dark areas were somewhat bluer than this.

Then, we moved on and found another jellyfish…and suddenly they were everywhere! Mr. Diligence counted 130 by the time we were done. Some were totally clear, like this one:

And this one, with Mr. Inventor’s shoe for scale.

This was the biggest we saw; it was more vividly brown.

It’s hard to see them, but there are jellyfish scattered across the rocks and seaweed here, at the high tide line. Look for purplish, transparent blobs.

After enjoying the jellyfish, I took Little  Miss onto the bridge that forms the end of the trail at South Bay. She loved looking through the bars.

Mr. Diligence brought me this handful of sand, gravel and tiny shells.