Porpoise Bay

This whole area is called "Curio Bay", but includes the long sandy enclosed Porpoise Bay, and the small rocky Curio Bay that directly faces the open ocean. On the road running along Porpoise Bay, there are houses and accommodation and several access points onto the beach. To see most of the attractions, continue to the end of the beach where the road ends in a T intersection. Left takes you to the camping ground, the beach store, beach access and cliff-top lookout. Porpoise Bay has a resident population of the endangered Hector's dolphin, and the delight is that in summer and autumn they can often be seen easily from the beach as they swim in or just beyond the surf. Turning right at the T intersection takes you to the Curio Bay car park, interpretive panels and a walk down to the rocks. Here are fossilized logs and tree stumps from a forest that stood in the Jurassic period 180 million years ago. It is one of the best examples of a Jurassic fossil forest in the world. You can walk around the fossils when the tide is out. The second attraction in this small bay is endangered yellow-eyed penguins that nest here and can be seen returning from the sea in the late afternoon and early evening and walking up the rocks or just standing around. Also in these bays, fur seals can sometimes be seen, usually on rocky shore, and the larger sea lions, usually on sandy shore.