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Published: March 30th 2024
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We flew early to Christchurch in the South Island from Auckland after a terrible night sleep in a beautiful boondock spot along the bay just minutes from the city center. Unfortunately some partygoers decided to get raging drunk and were smashing beer bottles during the night. There's always one night of idiots while boondocking, let's hope that was it for the trip.
We picked up our beautiful 17 ft. Toyota campervan that would be our home for the next 11 days. It was a huge upgrade for us, our first van being functional but this being cozy and luxurious by comparison. We drove a few hours north up the coast ending at the seaside town of Kaikoura. This town is one of the best places on earth to snorkel with dolphins in the wild and the best seafood in NZ so of course we came. It is also home to several species of whales, and a large colony of fur seals and albatross that they host tours to view.
The following morning we got another early start, having to meet up for our snorkel tour at 0545. I keep promising Dennis we can sleep in one of these
days but it hasn't happened yet. Our vacations never involve much relaxation, too much to see and do, I can relax at home is my opinion. As we readied the van to depart from the campground Dennis turned the key and all that happened was the "waawaa click." Dead battery, empty town, miles from the tour and no Ubers. We eventually got it jumped when campers started waking up an hour later, but it was already too late for the tour. We got on a later tour but only as a spectator, as the NZ gov't strictly regulates how many swimmers can be in the water with the Dolphins and these tours usually book out months in advance. The pod we found close to shore consisted of 100+ dolphins, but can reach a 1000+ superpod. These dolphins include the small critically endangered Hectors dolphin only found in NZ, and the most friendly and acrobatic species, the Dusky dolphin. We watched the pods of dolphins circling and socializing with the swimmers, performing acrobatic jumps out of the water as well. We knew our schedule needed to be adjusted and this experience was a must. Luck was on our side though and
there was a cancellation for the following day tour.
We spent the night camping on the beach in one of the best spots we've ever had which was nearby to a large fur seal colony. We had an evening swim in the Tasman sea, 62 degrees so not quite cold plunge temps but close. Who needs showers when you have wild swims? We met a lovely Kiwi couple over our lunch of whitebait fritters, mussels and scallops at a seafood BBQ shack. The couple was on their own campervan working holiday as well and the husband offered to give us Manuka honey samples from his own hives he keeps here along with a brief tutorial on the grades of honey and what makes it so special here. They made us feel at home with conversations about woke liberal politics, absurd vaccination policies and runaway inflation that's also a problem here. But as similar as world politics seem to be, they, like so many others before them have told us, watch US politics for entertainment as though it is some scripted ludicrous reality show with characters stranger than fiction.
The following morning we woke up to glassy calm seas,
excited for the pristine conditions we'd have with the dolphins. Over the course of 2 hours the seas went from calm to treacherous. Our captain went out to give it a go knowing he had dozens of anxious tourists but he was quickly forced back to the dock in the 5 foot swells with seasick passengers. We were refunded for our trip and offered to go on another day but unfortunately we had to move on if we wanted to see the locations I had hoped to for this trip without ridiculous amounts of driving every day. As with most of our trips we can't see it all and vow to return one day in retirement at a more leisurely pace.
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D MJ Binkley
Dave and Merry Jo Binkley
Kaikora
Kaikora is one of our favorite places. I'm so sorry you missed your swimming with the dolphins. Seeing them is amazing. I agree about watching our politics but it is a sad reality for us. You'll get those dolphins one day.