And when the 79-year-old Moeraki resident told her husband Max what she had just seen, he responded with a slightly quizzical look.
"We’d just finished our breakfast and thought we heard a noise," she said.
"I stood up and peeked through the window of the kitchen door, and of course then I saw it and it came right up to the door.
"I was a bit startled, so I locked it quickly. I thought it was going to come in."
Mrs Eckhold said the young female sea lion was able to get in because they had left the back door open overnight.
"I don’t normally do that. I won’t be doing that again."
The sea lion was so friendly, which was heartwarming, but it made it extremely difficult to get her back out of the house.
"They just want to follow you, don’t they.
"It looked like it was going to go to sleep."
Unfortunately, as it lay down, it bumped the back door and it partly closed, so Mrs Eckhold had to run out the front door and around the house so she could push the back door open again.
After about half an hour and some more shooing, the sea lion left — begrudgingly.
"It did bark at me a couple of times when I got a wee bit too close."
Eventually it went outside, across the lawn and back down to the beach.
The couple have lived in the house for the past 14 years, and many sea lions had ventured up off the beach to lie under the hedge in their garden during that time.
But never before had one actually come into their house.
Pure curiosity might have been the cause, she said.
"Sometimes they get injured and they want to recover, so they’ll come in for a couple of days and sleep in the garden.
"But this one was fine.
"There was nothing the matter with her."
While she appreciated the visit, Mrs Eckhold hoped the sea lion would not return any time soon because it was quite tiring for a 79-year-old to play bouncer.
"That was my bit of excitement for the day.
"I think I’ll go and have a cup of tea and a wee lie down now."
