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Published: September 20th 2007
Kaikoura
Beautiful! (the view..!)Saturday 15th September
Today we got up especially early to watch the England vs South Africa game - and then wished we'd stayed in bed! But we did have a good cup of tea and a doughnut for breakfast that sweetened the blow! Our plan was to head to Kaikoura for a spot of Whale Watching, but after we set off we read in the Lonely Planet about some natural springs in a town about 60km out of the way, so we decided to head to Hanmer Springs for a day of relaxation in the spa! When we got there, we headed for the spa to find the
natural spring had a
naturally occurring water slide and temperature controlled jacuzzis. But nevertheless we spent a good 2hrs swapping and changing between about 10 different pools at different temperatures with varying amount of sulphur levels. I got the start of a tan too!
Sunday 16th September
We arrived in Kaikoura after a 1.5hr drive from Hanmer Springs in time for lunch. The drive was initially quite dull as it is one straight road to the coast, but as soon as we hit the coast it was fantastic. The sun
was out and not a cloud in the sky as we drove along the windy coast road - I even made a video of it, but it's too big to upload on this site.
When we arrived we booked into a large hostel called Dusky Lodge and then hired a couple of bikes and headed along the coast to see where we could get to. We stopped practically every 2 minutes to take in the view as it was just stunning. After about 20 minutes, we came across a roadside/beachside (road on one, beach on other) seafood barbeque. So naturally we stopped and had some garlic scallops - my first attempt at trying to fall in love with seafood and it was rather successful because they were superb! At the end of the road was a seal colony, but there were only a couple about - though there was a pup. We left the bikes here and headed up the cliff for a wander along the bottom edge of the Kaikoura Peninsula which took a couple of hrs - heading out on the cliffs then coming back along the shore. The seals had obviously learned that away from the
car park was a better spot for privacy because as we walked back along the shore we bumped into loads sunning themselves on the rocks. We also had a bit of a Hitchcock moment when we wandered through the seagulls nesting ground as well - hundreds of them!
Monday 17th September
Whale watching day! The boat set sail at about 11am - a catamaran with a cabin that was a bit like the inside of an airplane - big seats and a big LCD screen that played animations of where we were and info about all the different sealife we might see. It took about 50mins to get to where the whales had been spotted today - around 20 miles off shore. We saw three but only for about 4/5 minutes each because they dived and once there under, it's a good hour or so before they resurface. It was good fun, but expensive and a bit too impersonal - it felt a little like we were being herded on and off. In hindsight it might have been better to have done a helicopter or small plane flight - all of which were the same price as the
boat trip ($130).
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Rosie
non-member comment
He he, loving all the pictures, sounds like you guys are having a great time! The sperm whale diving pic is good, and yes, sure it was the boat moving's fault! ;-) xxx