The Great bear lodge - a bucket list trip - part two - photo heavy

Hi again. Well, part two is about to begin and again is very photo heavy, so grab that cuppa and wander through my memories with me......

The next morning it was straight back to the hide to hopefully see more bears. We arrived and one was already there. The morning only got better as we sat and watched.

All the bears I saw on my trip were grizzly's. The Black bears stay away when they are around.

This one was digging for salmon eggs. There had been a flood a couple of weeks before I got there, and alot of the eggs got moved onto the rocky shelf where they were easy for the bears to find. This bear dug and dug and dug for AGES, then did this.....

We were glad we got there before it did this, as it lay in the water for ages, totally still. We thought it actually had a wee snooze. And if it was like this when we had arrived, we'd have thought it had died there. Then it just got up and started digging holes again. Classic. No salmon for this bear this morning.

Then we heard all this rustling and cracking of branches. A bear was coming. We watched as it made its way down the bank.

There they were in front of me, going about their daily routines. It was simply stunning to think of them doing this every day. They were all big and round having eaten all summer. They were only a few weeks from going into hibernation and were busily eating as much as they could before they did.

And as I sat on the side of the hide, watching the bear across the river, this one just wandered by. So close I could have reached out and touched him. He was realtively young and simply beautiful. That paw print I saw before may have been his. He was looking across the river at the bear still digging for eggs.

And then he decided to go across....

(still very close to us)

As you can see there are a couple of bears on the other side of the river now, plus the one that came out of the woods further to the right of the picture. We were trying to work out what was going on as bears are solitary animals and we were worried trouble was about to happen.

This beautiful boy (who had come out of the woods) was also worried.

But this one crossing the river had no fear! He kept going and went directly towards the boy on the other side.

Who decided it might be a good idea to take off.....only to come back a few minutes later.

We watched them circle each other wondering what would happen. And then the play fighting began. Emma hadn't seen this before. She kept saying how lucky I was to see this happening.

They kinda stopped for a while and we thought it was all over, but then they came back to each other again and I held my breath as they stood up and fought each other some more.

These two photos are probably my favourite of the whole trip. At this point it was incredibly quiet. I thought bears would make a growling noise, but no, no noise, not even while they are fighting. They just quietly got on with their fight. In fact it was eerily quiet.

Meanwhile during the fight this bear was still sitting there digging for and eating eggs.

Before wandering off to catch salmon that was still swimming upstream.

And then taking a dip in a deeper part of the water (actually I don't know if this one is the same bear). But they did love this part of the river which was a bit deeper so they could sit, catch salmon then eat it.

Oh yes! I saw plenty of this! Salmon caught, wandering to the bank to devour in peace.

And then another bear decided to wander past our hide. I think we now had 6 bears in front of us, at once. SIX!

Here's a look at the entrance to the hide. The bus gets parked where I'm standing taking the photo, the guide you are with gets off and chats to the bears so they know we are there, then we as the tourist can get off and make our way to the hide. The little 'path' to the right side of the hide is where bears have been known to make their way through.

And this is a 'typical' view of the road. After lunch we went for a blat on the boats. I was shown this secret little hideaway where a stunning waterfall was. We saw starfish then went looking for bears.

Along the way, I got to see the most gorgeous 'chocolate box' scenery. People say NZ is beautiful, I might have to concede that this little patch of the world might just be equal to NZs beauty?!

And then we got to an area we were hoping to see some bears. See all those white dots in the photos below? They are all dead rotting salmon.

Because they are all here, the bears often come down to scoop them up and eat them. Unfortunately there were none there today, but we got to see how the cycle of life worked and Emma got out of the boat and dragged us around to see if she could see some other wildlife.

It was pretty amazing. The salmon is just everywhere at this time of the year. Once they've spawned, they die. If the bears don't eat them, they become 'compost'. They are a huge part of the eco-system and are everywhere. In fact so much so that you can smell the rotting salmon everywhere.

While I was there, Canada had their Thanksgiving. I was totally spoilt and the whole team got together for dinner and a celebration that night.

I've already told you how amazing Glen the chef was. Well he made us all a delicious dinner and we had a great evening chatting about bears, what got everyone to the lodge, how it all started etc.

Emma my 'main' guide took the photo, everyone else had jobs at the lodge and made my stay truely wonderful.

And I think I'll leave it here for now. I will have another post to follow up. Catch ya soon.

Comments

once again...just AMAZING.....those bears hugging...or fighting are just amazing....i bet you had your mouth open in amazement the whole time!!!
fantastic trip for sure

Posted by: mandyb | June 20, 2014 at 07:20 AM