Whale watching

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This morning we were booked on the 10.00am Whale Watch Kaikoura Tour which was a very civilized time. Having stayed in Kaikoura overnight we didn’t have to be up early or be stressed about traffic and road conditions that might affect us arriving on time. After a leisurely breakfast we packed up the car and made our way over to the Whale Watch depot about 9.45am.

It turns out the sailing time is a little bit fluid with 10.00am merely the time that they start checking you in. The actual sailing time was dependent on when the 7.15am sailing returned to port and that depended on where and when the whale activity was earlier this morning! Not to worry, it all happened eventually.

Bernie splurged when he booked and paid the extra for us to sail in the Captain’s Cabin. This meant that even our transfer to the boat was premium with us travelling by minibus rather than in one of the buses with the rest of the hoi polloi. Nice!

When we reached boat we were escorted aboard and upstairs to the Captain’s Cabin ahead of all the people paying the cheaper price. Our seats in the upper cabin were very sumptuous and we had a staff member assigned to provide the six of us with all the food and drink and information that we might require while aboard.

With everyone loaded we cast off and headed out to sea. The unique topography of the seabed in this area means that there is 1,000-metre-deep water quite close to the shore. The deep ocean means food that attracts the sperm whales to an area where they are quite accessible for viewing relatively near to land. When the earlier tour was out they saw one whale (Holey Moley) twice, very close to shore, but they had heard about another whale active a bit further out to sea so we headed further out first to try to locate this second whale.

Talk about timing! Right at the moment we arrived at the coordinates the whale surfaced to catch its breath between deep sea dives. The sperm whales are quite predictable spending about 45 minutes on a dive feeding and then up to 10-15 minutes breathing and digesting their food on the surface before diving again.

We watched the whale breathing with its characteristic sprays of water on its out breaths. The crew are well versed in the whales’ behaviour and were able to tell us when the whale was getting prepared to dive again so that we could have our cameras ready to take photos of the tail fluke. WOW! Once the tail fluke was displayed we were told that the whale we had been watching was LNR240. The tail flukes on sperm whales are as individual as our fingerprints so researchers assign IDs to all the whales that they study in this area.

Because of the predictability of the whales we then motored back to the area where the whale was sighted earlier. Pretty much right on schedule HR25 (aka Holey Moley) surfaced. How lucky can we be? So far this morning we have spent very little time watching an empty ocean and heaps of time watching whales. Holey Moley was first recorded in the feeding ground off Kaikoura on the 6^th of June 2006. He measures in at 14.56 metres.

With two whale sightings under our belts we thought that we would be taken back to the port but, no, the Captain took us further out to sea again because LNR240 was about due to resurface. This time we had to wait about 10 minutes before he reappeared with him spending around 55 minutes on this dive. They spend an average of 45 minutes on a dive so it’s not an exact science, but for us it was proving to be a pretty reliable indicator. At this point we were very, very happy to have had three sightings of two whales.

The Captain was preparing to return us to shore when … up popped another whale! Oh, our commentator said, that’s very unusual for LNR240 to resurface so soon after diving. Even though it was going to make us late back the Captain wanted to wait until this whale dived to see its tail fluke and confirm its identity. OMG, after his tail was seen it was announced that we had seen ANOTHER whale. This guy was Mohio (meaning Wisdom) and he had not been seen in the area since May this year. So, our fourth sighting was very unexpected and unusual because it meant that these two HUGE whales were feeding almost on top of each other. After this bonus sighting we really did have to head back to shore pronto!

Back at our car it started to spit. It really was our lucky day with the great weather holding all morning while we were out on the boat! With several hours of driving now ahead of us we could cope with a little bit of rain while we were in the car. We programmed the SatNav for Richmond and started heading north on State Highway 1. North of Blenheim we turned west onto State Highway 63. Our friends advised us a couple of days ago that our route would be shorter/quicker if we turned off Highway 63 to come over the mountains via Tophouse. This route is closed to heavy vehicles, but we were able to travel this way with only one slight diversion as there is a section of the road that remains closed to all traffic.

And I don’t have much to say about the drive because I may have snoozed … just a little bit??! OK, a lot. Honestly I hate that I just cannot stay awake when we are driving in new and interesting, not to mentions ridiculously scenic, places! It is like I suffer from some sort of car induced sleep apnea. Very, very frustrating.

I pretty much slept all the way to Blenheim! From there all I can recall is acres of vineyards, sheep and cattle grazing in paddocks, the Wairau River and maybe just a mountain or two … or a dozen, many of which were covered in pine plantations.

Shortly after we turned off onto the Korere-Tophouse Road we made a quick stop at the Tophouse Historic Inn. We had been needing to stretch our legs for a while, but the rain and a lack of rest stop areas conspired against us. When it wasn’t raining there was nowhere convenient to pull in and when there was a place to stop … it was too wet to be getting out of the car! Luckily there was a break in the weather than coincided with reaching the historic inn, just right for a quick photo op and leg stretch.

After almost four hours on the road we arrived in Richmond just before 6.00pm. It was lovely to finally catch up with our former next door neighbours after last seeing them on the Sunshine Coast during their Australian holiday in February 2020 … just before the dreaded pandemic hit and kept so many people apart for so long!

After a BBQ dinner it was time for the really serious part of this holiday to get underway … playing for the Trans-Tasman Bolivia Ashes.


• For the benefit of anyone reading our blog who is not familiar with the origin of this tournament it dates back to when we still lived two houses apart in our old suburb in Melbourne. We had played the card game Bolivia for decades without ever keeping track of who was winning overall. We eventually decided to keep track, just out of interest’s sake. After doing that for a couple of years we decided that whoever had won the most games for the year should receive some recognition so, on New Years Eve 2013, we burnt the Bolivia pack that we had been playing with and put the ashes in a jar thus instituting The Bolivia Ashes Trophy! This trophy went back and forth between our households for a couple of years until the neighbours decided to move back to New Zealand. Hence, they are now known as the Trans-Tasman Bolivia Ashes. We try to have an annual tournament to contest the ashes but with COVID, we haven’t been able to get together since early 2020. The Aussies have been lucky enough to be the custodians of the prize since February 2020.


And so the games commenced. On our first night of play it was one game each to Australia and New Zealand.



Steps for the day: 3,561 (2.39km)

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