The drive to work was anything but normal for Michael Saxon today. As he made his way through Papakura, in Auckland's south, he came upon a giant seal in the middle of the road.
"I was really surprised, I definitely wasn't expecting that," he said. "It was kind of just plodding along the road, it was heading towards the Papakura township. A few motorists were pulling over and freaking out."
Mr Saxon said the seal was enormous. "It was definitely the weirdest thing I've seen on the way to work - hands down."
Katrina Ward was on her way to uni with a friend when she spotted the seal.
"It was quite relaxed just sitting in the park," she said.
"It must of been there for quite awhile, as the tide goes out in the early hours of the morning."
Firefighters and police are currently at the scene trying to coax the seal into a nearby waterway. The call out has been coded a "mammal hazard".