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Published: October 23rd 2008
Clean breaks
How's work Kaz?Polly:
Everyone said that the South Island was the place to go for "scenery", but up until now I thought the North Island was pretty spectacular. However, driving away from the ferry terminal in Picton, the road twisted around vineyard after vineyard. State Highway 1 turned into an amazing coastal road, winding around the farmland with snow-capped mountains in the distance. The coast was fairly rocky, but at times had black, volcanic sand beaches. I was gazing out of the window when I noticed some furry blobs on the rocks. We stopped the van to have a look, and found ourselves staring out at another seal colony. There were females, bulls, pups, all relaxing on the rocks with a couple of the younger ones swimming in the rock pools.
We travelled a couple of hours south to Kaikoura, on the east coast. We drove through the town and out the other side, stopping at a deserted bay for the night next to a conveniently-located public convenience. After a couple of packets of Indomie satay noodles (fantastic travelling grub), we tried out our little DVD player - not bad, as long as you sit quite close to the screen.
The next morning we went to a local whale watching company to see if we could get on a boat tour, as Kaikoura is renowned for its sperm whale feeding grounds. They'd had a cancellation, but the swell was quite bad out at sea due to escalating winds and they were advising against it if you suffered from seasickness. As it was $140 each, and not wanting to spend the trip puking, we decided against it. The lady we spoke to suggested taking a flight instead.
At $135 a pop, the "Wings Over Whales" flights were great, and an ideal alternative to a rough day at sea. Just in case, I took a travel sick pill and waited for the next flight. It was going to be just the two of us (plus pilot and co-pilot), but just before take-off an Israeli family turned up, so we all went out in the 8-seater Cessna. Half way through the flight I got a wiff of pizza, then realized it was semi-digested pizza. The Israeli lady sat behind Ross had clearly not taken a travel sick pill and was having a rough time due to the pilot pulling some tight turns.
About five minutes after take-off we spotted a sperm whale which had just surfaced and we circled 150m or so above it for about 10 minutes until it went back down. They run like clockwork - 45 minutes in the base of the deep sea canyon (1 - 2km deep) eating baby sharks, squid, crayfish and other sea life, then they swim vertically upwards to the surface and get some more oxygen before they dive vertically down again. As it dived it flicked its tail up like you see on postcards, but we bothed missed the moneyshot with our cameras.
They are the most amazing creatures. The six that live in the canyon off the Kaikoura coastline are juvenile males (5 - 15 yrs old) who are waiting to mature and start mating. They are between 15-20m in length so pretty easy to spot. I think they are my new favourite creatures. The end.
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