Around 3,000 grey seal pups are born on the Farne Islands every autumn, and the only way to see them is from a boat out of Seahouses. Here's which boat, what it costs, and what your kids will actually see.
Grey seal pups are born on the Farne Islands, off Seahouses in Northumberland, and the National Trust says around 3,000 arrive each autumn, with October to December the best time to see them. Nobody lands in pup season, so you watch from a 90 minute seal cruise out of Seahouses harbour with Billy Shiel's, Serenity or Golden Gate, from about £22 an adult, weather permitting. Grey seals also live round Coquet Island all year (boats from Amble) and haul out on the sandbanks off Holy Island.
Checked 29 September 2026. Dates and prices change, so the organiser's link is the one to trust.
Seal pups in Northumberland means the Farne Islands, mostly. They're a scatter of low, bare rocks a few miles off Seahouses on the coast of Northumberland, England (not the Northumberland Strait in Canada, which the search box keeps offering you). The National Trust owns them and says around 3,000 grey seal pups are born there every autumn. You can't land in pup season. You bob round on a boat from Seahouses for an hour and a half while fat white pups lie on the rocks and ignore you completely. One of the best wildlife trips in the North East, in my opinion. Also cold, and sometimes cancelled at short notice, so here's what the boat websites leave out.
The first pups usually appear in October. The National Trust says October to December is the best time to see them, and Billy Shiel's, one of the three Seahouses boat firms, says pups are on view from late October until January. A 2019 Living North feature put the start at around 17 October, the peak in mid November and the tailing off towards the end of December. If you can only go once, go in the middle of November. Christmas week still gets you plenty of seals, just fewer of the newborn white ones.
October half term in Northumberland runs from Saturday 24 October to Sunday 1 November 2026, which is right at the start of the season. You might see a handful of early pups. You might see none. You'll definitely see grown seals, so promise the kids seals and let the pups be a bonus.
A word on the numbers, because the internet can't agree. The National Trust's current figure is around 3,000 pups a year, about 2.5 per cent of all grey seal pups born in Britain. Rangers count them every four days with drones, working with Newcastle University, and the colony keeps growing: Living North reported 1,740 pups in 2014, and Visit Northumberland gives 3,624 for 2024. More than double in ten years. I couldn't find the 2025 count published yet. Some older pages, the Northumberland Coast National Landscape's among them, still say over 1,000. Go with the people flying the drone.
Every Farnes boat sails from Seahouses harbour. Inner Farne landings finish at the end of September, so from October nobody sets foot on the islands and every trip is a cruise round them. Three firms run seal cruises. They're all about an hour and a half, they're all within a couple of quid of each other, and they all answer to the North Sea.
Billy Shiel's runs eight boats, including two double-deckers with an open top deck and a covered saloon. The 90 minute cruise sails round all the islands without landing, goes every day the weather allows, and Billy Shiel's says the pups are on view from late October until January. Check in at the harbour booking office 30 minutes before you sail.
If they cancel for the weather you get another date or a full refund, and you can cancel yourself up to 24 hours ahead for your money back. Dogs are welcome. Book online or ring 01665 720308.
Serenity's cruise sails all year except Christmas Day, takes about an hour and a half and doesn't land. It publishes the clearest family prices of the three: £17 for children 15 and under, and under fives go free. The commentary includes the story of Grace Darling and the wreck of the Forfarshire, which holds a seven year old better than a list of seal facts.
Arrive 30 minutes early for your boarding pass. Well behaved dogs are welcome. Wheelchair users can board only around high tide and the boats can't take extra-wide or electric chairs, so ring 01665 721667 first. Serenity's own advice is to wrap up warm because it gets cold at sea, and they would know.
The third firm, Golden Gate, runs a Seabird and Seal Cruise of an hour and a half. Its website lists adult fares (12 and over) from £23.32 and children aged 4 to 11 at £18.02, with under fours free and £21.20 for students and over 65s. It says dogs are welcome on all its trips.
The winter timetable isn't on the website, so ring 07904 800590 to find out what's sailing before you drive up.
Which one? Honestly, it hardly matters. Same islands, same seals, same 90 minutes. Pick the departure time that suits your lot and whichever firm is actually sailing. With a baby or toddler I'd lean to Serenity or Golden Gate for the free fares. And go around midday if you can: from Monday 16 November the sun sets before 4pm, and a seal cruise in the gloaming is just a cold cruise in the dark.
Until the end of October 2026, Billy Shiel's also runs a much longer trip past the Farnes and their seals, then up the coast to Holy Island at high tide with about two hours ashore. About four and a half hours in all, on selected days timed to the tides, at £47 an adult. Too long for most under sixes, in my view, but a proper day out for older kids, and nobody has to worry about the causeway.
The Seahouses car parks are pay and display, and not the National Trust's. The council's Station Yard car park is the obvious one: at the time of writing it's free for the first hour, £5.50 for two hours, £7 for three and £10.50 all day, charged 8am to 6pm every day. Coins, contactless where the machine allows, or PayByPhone (location 804141).
Do the maths before you get smug about the free hour. Thirty minutes' check-in plus a 90 minute cruise is two hours before anybody has said the word chips, so budget for three. The public toilets are next to the main car park. Use them before you board, every single one of you, including the one who says they don't need to.
Now the big one. In autumn and winter the sea cancels trips, sometimes at short notice. On the day I checked this guide, Puffin Cruises down at Amble had scrubbed two days for rough seas. Book the boat, but don't hang the whole day on it: ring on the morning if it's blowing, and have a plan B within ten minutes' drive.
Manage expectations on the drive up. You're on a boat and the pups are on the rocks, so without binoculars a newborn pup is a white blob on a dark rock. With binoculars it's a white blob with a face, which is a big improvement. Beg or borrow a pair per child. Sharing binoculars on a moving boat is how fights start.
On a decent day they'll see big grey seals hauled out on the rocks like dropped sleeping bags, heads popping up out of the water to have a look at the boat, and white pups dotted about among the adults. The puffins and most of the summer seabirds are long gone. The National Trust says the breeding season closes at the end of July, so if anyone promised puffins, that was a lie, and it wasn't me.
Two facts that go down well with seven year olds. A pup is born in a white fluffy coat and its mother feeds it for only about three weeks (17 to 23 days, says the Berwickshire and Northumberland Marine Nature Partnership) on milk so rich that the pup roughly quadruples its birth weight. Then she leaves. The pup moults its white coat around the time it's weaned and heads out to sea on its own. Expect questions about why you're still making their packed lunches.
Ninety minutes on a cold boat is a long time when you're three. If your youngest objects to sitting still, the one hour Coquet Island trip from Amble (further down) is the shorter option, when it's running.
Promise them seals. Let the pups be a bonus. The North Sea doesn't take bookings.
The North Sea in November is not the Med. If anyone goes green in the back of the car, plan for it. The NHS advice on motion sickness is to sit in the middle of a boat, look at a fixed point such as the horizon, get fresh air, avoid heavy meals before travelling and distract children by talking or singing. It also suggests ginger, including as a biscuit, which is the best medical news I've had all year. Pharmacies sell dissolvable travel sickness tablets for children; the patches are only for adults and children over 10.
So: middle of the boat, eyes on the horizon, fresh air on the open deck if it's dry, and the fish and chips after the trip, not before. I will die on this hill.
You can see grey seals from the shore in Northumberland, but there's no public viewpoint over a mainland pupping beach and no official body points people at one. The Berwickshire and Northumberland Marine Nature Partnership says seals breed and haul out on some rocky beaches south of Alnmouth, which is exactly why I'm not giving you directions. The rules, from the people who pick up the pieces:
If a seal is looking at you, you're the entertainment. Back off until it goes back to sleep.
Every winter somebody finds a pup on a beach and decides it's been abandoned. Usually it hasn't. British Divers Marine Life Rescue says that if it's a young pup, its mother might still be in the area, and she may abandon it if people interfere. So:
And no selfies. BDMLR warns that seals can inflict nasty bites, on you, your child or your dog, and a fluffy white pup still has teeth and a mother who may be watching from the water.
The Farnes are the main event, but they're not the only seals in the county. Two more are worth knowing, with catches.
Coquet Island, just off Amble, is an RSPB reserve that nobody lands on, and Puffin Cruises says the grey seal colony on its east side stays all year round; the Northumberland Coast National Landscape puts them in the hundreds. Dave Gray's Puffin Cruises runs one hour trips from the dock steps at Amble harbour, seal watching cruises included, at £20 an adult, £15 a child and free for under threes.
The catch for autumn: when I checked, its website listed sailings only up to 4 October 2026, nothing for the winter, and every sailing depends on the tide and the sea. Booking is essential, on 07752 861914 or at Pod 12 in Amble Harbour Village.
Yes, you can see seals from Holy Island. Grey seals haul out on the sandbanks between the island and the mainland at mid to low tide, according to a guesthouse on the island, and they're a long way off, so binoculars again. The same guesthouse says visitors hear a strange moaning drifting over the flats, which is the seals calling to each other. Tell the kids it's Vikings and see how long that lasts.
The causeway floods twice a day. Check Northumberland County Council's safe crossing times before you set off, build the day round them, and never drive into water. The Lindisfarne Goose Festival runs from 26 to 31 October 2026 across the nature reserve (programme still to be announced), if you fancy geese with your seals.
Further up the coast, Visit Northumberland says you might spot grey seals at Berwick-upon-Tweed. Might is doing a lot of work in that sentence, so treat it as a bonus on a walk round the town rather than a trip in itself.
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The Farne Islands, by boat from Seahouses, where the National Trust says around 3,000 grey seal pups are born each autumn. Coquet Island, seen by boat from Amble, has grey seals all year, and seals haul out on the sandbanks around Holy Island at mid to low tide.
Yes, at a distance. Grey seals haul out on the sandbanks between Holy Island and the mainland at mid to low tide, so bring binoculars, and check the council's safe crossing times first because the causeway floods twice a day.
On the Farne Islands the National Trust says October to December is best, and Billy Shiel's says pups are on view from late October until January. Living North put the peak in mid November.
Grey seals on this coast pup from about September to December, and on the Farnes mostly from October; the cross-border wildlife code treats 1 November to 31 January as the grey seal breeding season. Common seals, rarely seen here, breed from 1 June to 31 August.
Leave it alone, keep people and dogs at least 100 metres back, and never put it back in the sea, because its mother may be nearby. If it looks thin, injured or tangled, ring British Divers Marine Life Rescue on 01825 765546, 24 hours a day.
They can bite: British Divers Marine Life Rescue warns that seals can inflict nasty bites on people and dogs. Watch from at least 100 metres and never touch a pup, which can also make its mother abandon it.
Not for landing from October. Inner Farne landings run from April to September, but seal cruises from Seahouses sail round the islands all year when the weather allows, and Serenity sails every day except Christmas Day.
Facts checked against 27 pages on Tuesday 29 September 2026. Opening times and prices change, so confirm with the venue.
