And on to the South Pacific Ocean

Spent the night in the Nelson Lakes region at a cute place. This morning hiked along the Rotoiti lake and the woods above it. Rotoiti lake is at the northern edge of the Southern Alps. After being in Norway's fjords last year, where the mountains were forced by the glaciers, I expected the Southern Alps here to be formed in the same way, but I found the the mountains were formed by teutonic plates and shaped by the glaciers. The Indo-pacific and Australian plates pushed together and lifted sediment to create the mountains, then the glaciers came along and reshaped the mountains and created lakes. There are some extinct volcanoes in other areas we will be visiting, but not in the Alp region. We saw a black swan and a few mallards in the lake. The woods were filled with fallen trees, many with the root system intact. It seems the trees here have a very shallow root system, so when a strong wind blows into the woods, trees fall over.

Also got to see the honeydew I wrote about yesterday. The insect burrows into the tree, eats the sap, and excretes a sweet, sugary substance through a filament which hangs down the tree. The filament is about as long as the second knuckle on my pointer finger. The honey is eaten bu various birds, insects, and other animals. Each drop of honey is not much bigger than a pin head.

We drove several hours to Kaikoura, on the eastern coast (touches the South Pacific Ocean). Just before we reached Kaikoura we stopped at a site of a fur seal colony. Although many of the seals were enjoying the warm sun, few (especially the babies) were playing in the water and on the rocks. One poor fellow seemed to be looking all over for his "mum" (as they say down here). He kept climbing rocks and going over to an adult, then tryingAgain with the next adult he found. I don't think he ever found his mom, but he got distracted by another baby and began playing.

Interesting fact day 5: mammals are not indigenous to NZ. All the mammals that exist today were brought by Europeans in the 1800's or later.