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Published: March 2nd 2013
Sadly this will be our final blog from New Zealand, as we are about to fly from Auckland, back to Sydney, to start our tour around Australia. This is a bit of a mammoth blog with lots of photos and even video links. (Appologies!)
Our final leg back up New Zealand started at Kaikoura, where we stayed in a nice little hostel called "Fish Tank". As you can probably imagine it was all themed around sealife, including the paintings on the walls and even ceilings - the ceiling of the kitchen was like looking out through the top of a fish tank. There was also a large balcony area overlooking the Kaikoura high street and beach, which was just outside our room, so we ate most of our meals out there which was great.
Kaikoura means "crayfish meal" in Maori, due to the first settler finding them here in abundance. To the rest of us non-New Zealanders, a crayfish is actually a rock lobster, or a lobster with no pesky claws. The sea is rich in marine life, due to the deep canyons below the water and there being only a short continental shelf under the water (Chris and
Claire you would love all the sealife here). We had pre-arranged to do the Sperm Whale watching tour which was cancelled on the Friday due to bad sea conditions. We managed to re-book for Saturday and as the weather got worse we spent the day walking the Kaikoura Peninsula Track in search of seals. We were not disappointed - we were pretty much by ourselves on the coastline looking out at the seals on the rocks when Hazel noticed one lying on his back right infront of us. Until then it had only looked like seaweed over a rock. As we re-scanned the area around us we saw another one lying on the grass behind us and found another one under a tree! I think this was repayment for not seeing that many in Abel Tasman (Video clip for the animal lovers - below)
we came to the last stretch of our 3 hour walk, the weather improved just in time for us to stop off at a seafood BBQ shack next to the road. We had a seafood platter of scallops, green lip mussels and a crayfish. The crayfish was really good, especially sitting next to the sea and
having it freshly BBQed for us. Yum!
On our return back to the hostel we had a brief WIFI session during which we quickly checked the bookme site (after the 50% off vino in Queenstown, it is now one of our favourite websites). We found a deal on the Dusky Dolphin Tour leaving at 5:30AM the next morning! Ouch - I'm not a morning person, but Hazel was eager to see the dolphins so we signed up. I was less bothered to go on the tour, but I'm so glad we decided to. It turned out to be the highlight of our Kaikoura stay and being there at sunrise meant great light for photos and that we arrived just after the dolphins had fed, so they were very playful (apparently they feed on many things, including krill - we could even see the krill from the boat as the water was so clear). Despite us going along as spectators, the trip was really aimed at people wanting to swim with the wild dolphins. At 6 in the morning, the air was freezing, let alone the water, so we were pretty pleased with that decision! After heading about 20 minutes
along the coast in a small boat we saw a pod of Dusky Dolphins. There were easily a couple of hundred dolphins and they were going crazy - jumping out of the water, doing backflips, playing beside the boat and in the wake. We couldn't believe our luck as everywhere you looked they were jumping out of the water. Apparently there are sometimes Orca (killer whales) in the area which can make the dolphins nervous (they have been known to eat them), but not today. Although at one point all the dolphins raced across the horizon, we have no idea if this was because they were scared or were playing, but it was an incredible sight. We appologies for the number of photos and videos on this blog entry, but if you only watch one video then make it the racing dolphins one and you will see what we mean.
I have definitely covered the Dusky Dolphins enough for now, so on to the Sperm Whales. This was our second trip of the day, and followed straight after the dolphin trip, so we were glad of the walk between the dolphin office and the whale office to warm back
up! This time we took a larger jet boat a few miles out to sea to track a whale. There were helicopters and planes that were also on the whale's tail, as well as the boats which all co-ordinated (and used sonar) to locate where the whales are and which ones are about to surface. The Sperm Whale only spends about 5-10 minutes on the surface before diving for 40-50 minutes, so the tour only has very small periods of time where you can see the whales. While waiting for a whale the guide pointed out the types of Albotross to us, which just looked like seagulls on steroids to me! While the whale is on the surface you can see from the head to the dorsal fin which shows how large these creatures are despite only being one third of the animal. We saw it blow water (and carbon dioxide - for the bio-geeks) before the guide predicted a dive and the whale raised it's tail in the air and sunk into the water. Brilliant! (This warrants another video showing the camera skills of H Christy! Whale Tale)
I think we will both become wildlife photographers when we return,
as NZ makes it so easy!
Our next stop on the return journey was Blenheim, which is a small town about half-an-hour away from Picton (the South island's ferry terminal). Blenheim is situated in the heart of the Marlborough wine region, and so we decided it was definitely worth a visit to pay homage to the local 'Savvy-B'. We did get some strange looks from our fellow travellers when we got off the bus here - it's not exactly a favourite backpacker destination, as the wineries don't sell $5 jugs of beer! This issue extended to our accommodation options; as there weren't very many hostels, we ended up in a 'Top 10 Holiday Park', which is some sort of cross between a camp site and Center Parcs (closer to a campsite it turned out, sadly). The problem with Top 10, we discovered, was that everyone else was all kitted out for camping - we had an interesting challenge on the first night, trying to work out what we could cook using our tupperware salad boxes, as they'd provided a large and spotlessly clean kitchen but no crockery or pans ($5 Dominos Pizza is the answer!). On the plus side,
Hazel was very excited to find a hairdryer in the bathroom (and in Wellington, which was our next stop, we stayed in a YHA that has hairdryers AND straighteners in the bathrooms, woo hoo!)
We stopped in Blenheim for a day to do a Marlborough wine tour, which was made easy by a local company who drive you around the wineries in a minibus. Our first stop was Cloudy Bay, which Hazel requested. We started with two fizzy wines ('bubbles', to the locals), then the obigitary Sauvignon Blanc (2012), Riesling (it had a restrained nose - a posh way of saying that Mark couldn't smell the bouquet), then a Chardonnay and finished with a Pinot Noir. The next place was a little winery called Rock Ferry, where the rest of our group had stopped earlier in the day for lunch. Cloudy Bay was probably our favourite, followed closely by a winery called Spy Valley (who apparently sell their Sauvignon in Majestic, so we might need to make a trip there when we get back...). As the rest of our group had been drinking since 10am (we joined the tour at 1pm, being poor backpackers), they 'wasted' a lot of
their wine by pouring it into the spit buckets; we think we got the best value for money by drinking pretty much everything we were given! (Note from Mark, who managed to drink everything he was offered but was shocked to see Hazel voluntarily tipping away her glass of Gewurtztraminer). Our final winery was Wither Hills, who owned masses of vines which extended as far as the eye could see. They had a viewing platform which looked over the vineyards, giving a fantastic panorama, but the highlight was their "Wine Library". This was about 20 rows of vines, each of which was a different grape variety, so you could taste the grapes. There wasn't time to try them all, so we did our main favourites including Malbec and Sauvignon Blanc - most weren't quite ripe yet, so were horribly sour!
We spent the next couple of days travelling from Blenheim to Taupo, via Picton and Wellington, with the help of the Interislander Ferry. On the bus back up we stopped at the Tui Beer Brewery. As Mark has given up beer for lent, he had to eat carrot sticks and hummous sitting in the beer garden, while Hazel joked
around and called him a "big girl's blouse".
Our optional stop before Auckland was at Mount Maunganui to top up Hazel's tan and allow Mark to wear his new beach vest! Maunganui is a beachy area known for surfing waves and we were fortunate to see a Surfing Competition while we were there. We spent the afternoon on the white sandy beach before heading back to the hostel and cooking up all our left over food - cauliflower/spaghetti cheese anyone?!
Our final night was spent in Auckland, where we treated ourselves to a night in a hotel, and what better way to say farewell to New Zealand than to watch a Super Fifteen rugby game at Eden Park? It was the first game of the season for the Auckland Blues against the Christchurch Crusaders. On entry into the ground we were given a Blues flag, so that made our decision of who to support easy - we are pleased to say the Blues won, so it was obviously the right choice! It was a good game, if more for the atmosphere rather than the rugby. I'm looking back through the photos now and the majority appear to be
of the Crusaders no. 10 Dan Carter?! Errrm, not sure how this has happened... Hazel?
Farewell New Zealand!
- Seal
- Whale Tail
- Racing Dolphins
- Here is another funnier one of a flippin dolphin
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Christine
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Those dolphin videos are fantastic! And to respond to an early question, no I didn't stay in the Christchurch prison hostel - I did stay in one in Nelson though so they must be a common occurence.