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Published: February 3rd 2012
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“Doing” the peninsula hike The only hike outlined in our Lonely Planet is “the” Kaikoura Peninsula Walkway. We drive to the end of the main road where the buildings turn into shack-like creations and then drop out entirely for a brief stretch and the road ends in a parking lot. We quickly ascend up the cliffside and look back toward the mainland. The flat east coast plain breaks abruptly upon the slate mountains where clouds still obscure the tops of the mountains. This would be spectacular with a clear view. It’s still catching with the contrast of grey, white, green, and the ever blue ocean. It’s windy as all get-out but at least there’s no mist! The path takes us along the top of the cliffs past Point Kearn, making us clamber over stiles into cow pastures past stiff-legged calves.
I find myself identifying invasive grasses. At first, unconsciously, I feel a small thrill at recognizing species. It gives me a sense of knowing an unknown place. I’ve come to the point in my life where knowing the names of plants, birds, mammals, grounds me in a place. But then I snap and realize that the reason I
know these plants are precisely because they are non-native. And they are non-native in California as well, my current home. I have to actively shut off the conservationist inside of me, not letting the woes of the world filter into my now. That’s for later. That’s for most of the time. Right now there is sea and waves and verdant grass and cows and gulls. Oh my gosh, there are
gulls!
Our trek has taken us back down the cliff to a red-billed gull rookery. The smell of bird droppings, painting the rocks white, is earthy and pungent. This is the furthest reach of the peninsula and trail tendrils twine all over. I stop to examine a fur seal carcass, marveling at the fine straightness of the bones in the flippers, just like fingers. A white-faced heron perches itself atop a limestone column. We venture close to a seal colony, where other tourists stand, on the verge of alarmingly close. The seals plaster themselves over the rocks, draping, snuggling, and contorting. Mermaids deliberately disregarding the avid watchers. Kristy tells me there’s two main lines of seals, one with earflaps and the other without (fur seals belong to the
Smelly rookery
Those two brave folks were collecting data of some sort in the colony former.)
Back up the cliff, Kristy and I part ways (she’s tired) and I continue the trek. Over rolling green hills, the only trees are planted lines demarcating fence lines. I see a brightly colored goldfinch, another British import, rosy-faced and with a flash of yellow on its wing. I reach the South Bay where the water is so shallow I wonder if I could just walk from one side to the other. There’s a brief spot of houses and town then the trail turns back toward the north bay where Kaikoura sits. A plunge into a riparian copse of pines of some sort and then up again to the hills. It’s an easy walk back to the I-Center where Kristy meets me and we drive back to the hostel.
The pink house I can only rest for so long. I’m off again, on my own, to the Fyffe House, the oldest building in Kaikoura. Now a restored house made into museum it was built in 1842 by the Fyffe family who turned Kaikoura into a whaling center. The house is actually built on whale vertebrae...! I’m the only tourist nosing about the place. The
young caretaker, her partner and baby somehow manage to keep themselves discreetly out of my immediate sight in the tiny place. The house is pink, a shade somewhere near the original color actually. I never knew pink houses were fashionable way back when! (Maybe they weren’t….) When the house was being built, they excavated the remains of a Maori hunter underneath what’s now the kitchen. He was a Moa hunter and his posthumous claim to fame comes from the egg that was found with him. It’s the largest moa egg found in New Zealand (if I recall correctly!) Good hunter, that one! Among the interesting tidbits about the inhabitants of the cottage, I also read a bit about the history of whaling on the peninsula. And about the changing, perhaps strained relationships as Maori joined the whaling trade, hunting creatures they had rarely targeted before.
After that, I return to make a simple spaghetti dinner. Kristy and I chat with the other hostel goers. So many Swiss and Germans! We go out for a pint at the Free Strawberry (another jam bar) and then go home “early,” before 1:00 AM. Tomorrow we have to get to
Whales shoring up the foundations
Whale vertebrae, an example of what the house was built upon Christchurch and drop off our rental so we decide to take it easy.
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