Next Hike

The next hike will be on Saturday, 1st September. 

We meet at the Ballpark in Gillies Bay at 10:00am.

Last week we were faced with a day when some low cloud was covering the high ground and it seemed likely to hang around for most of the day.  There was not much point in heading uphill to a view point on a mountain top so we opted for a hike though some forest and down to where we could look for marine mammals along the shore.  We were hoping to see Orcas or perhaps humpback whales as both species have been reported in our area recently.  As it happened we did get to see some of our smallest marine mammal as we were enjoying lunch at the top of a low cliff just south of Mouat Point.  We saw them some distance away at first as they seemed to have found a concentration of small fish that they could eat without needing to return to the beach and it seemed to be a family of five or six staying close together for quite some time.  We knew we were close to where they spend time onshore and sure enough they headed back towards us and passed close by before landing just beyond a headland.  I think it was probably a mother, on the left in the photo, with her young family. After lunch we headed south, but were careful to avoid disturbing the large group of harbour seals that were basking on the shore not too far away.

JD.

 

A family of otters came very close to where we were eating lunch on a grassy bluff at the shoreline.