Kaikoura: Where's the whale? Oh THERE'S the whale!

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I am becoming so confused as to where we have been and where we were when different things happened. We have been a long time on the road now and my brain is struggling to cope with all of the new places, the old places and the places I am already thinking about for the North Island of New Zealand and for South America. I am starting to realise just how important to us our blogs will be, as there are so many parts of our journey, Asia in particular that are very hazy indeed.

The journey from Hanmer Springs to Kaikoura was scenic, lots of mountains, valleys and vegetation. Two weeks ago we would have been stopping every ten minutes to take a pretty picture but today, even though we were on the ‘scenic route’ instead of the other main highway, we just ploughed along until we reached our destination. My knees felt wobbly as I drove around sharp corners high up on the side of mountains as I comprehended the immense drop next to us. Bertha was struggling to accelerate (as usual) and couldn’t maintain a high speed because of all of the bends in the road and also had problems changing gear automatically which can be very frustrating for the driver - me.

When we arrived in Kaikoura we headed straight for the whale watching headquarters which wasn’t far from the main road in the town centre. Explaining that we hadn’t booked anything, the friendly woman behind the counter told us that we could get on the next boat if we would like and that the weather conditions were perfect out at sea - that there was only a ‘light sea sickness’ warning which was two levels below the norm. Fantastic! After a short safety video and a five minute bus ride we stepped aboard the catamaran and were told that we would be travelling at the speed of 30 knots - very quickly! Although we had been told that there was only a ‘light sea sickness’ warning, the crew told us that there was likely to be a bit of swell out at sea and that there were sick bags in the pocket on the seats in front of us. Great. Sea sickness tablets at the ready, we both took one although I’m not sure how much good it did as I still felt queasy the whole time.

After whizzing out to sea at a furious pace for ten minutes or so, we made it off the edge of the continental shelf and into water that was over 1000 metres deep (which freaked me out a bit when looking down at it). So then all we had to do was wait for a cheeky ‘little’ Sperm Whale to arrive (no giggling please Mr Dearn), they told us that the whales normally dive underwater for between 30-40 minutes although the longest recorded dive was 2 hours and 17 minutes, and this one had already been down for 15 minutes so we had a little wait ahead of us. Not much was going on while we waited (although we did see a blue shark swim by), everyone hoping to get the first glimpse of the whale emerging on the surface. Finally, after what seemed like a very long time, someone shouted something about the whale being on the surface and everybody rushed to look. Sperm whales don’t make a grand dramatic entrance, they just plop up to the surface like a big log, so the fact that the whale was initially on the other side of the boat to us didn’t really matter and we all scurried up to the top deck of the boat for a better look at the whale.
This particular whale has been coming to Kaikoura since 1994 - pretty loyal hey? It was a male (females are rarely seen as they stay closer to home in warmer waters close to their family) and was 18 metres long. 18 metres didn’t seem that long until I looked at the whale with the perspective of a whale watcher boat behind. I then realised just how huge it was! The sperm whale blew air out of it’s blow hole which you could see as a spray of water near to it’s head. We were lucky enough to be in a position where a rainbow was created through the whale’s water spray. Cool! Rainbows are really difficult to catch on camera but I managed to get a picture with some colour in the spray at least. After being on the surface for fifteen minutes to pose for it’s photocall and to catch it’s breath the whale was finally ready to dive back down for another hearty meal of squid and fish, with it’s head and body disappearing before it’s tail rose up into the air with a giant swish and went under too (a very cool exit).

Thinking that this would be the end of the whale watching tour we were massively surprised when they said that we were going to scoot off in an attempt to find some more marine wildlife for 30 minutes, in time to return to see the whale for a second time when he re-surfaced. Five minutes later and after a lot more choppy sailing we stopped and were told that there were some dusky dolphins outside for us to go and look at. I’m not exaggerating when I say that the dolphins were EVERYWHERE (well, not IN the boat, but everywhere in the water). Dolphins were swimming by all sides of the boat, arching their backs in and out of the water as they went, in twos, threes and fours ... dozens of them. Then some of them started jumping around, making big splash landings in the water before submerging and blasting out again and landing with another big splash, really amazing to see ... and so much more entertaining than watching a whale catch its breath for fifteen minutes! So we spent ten minutes or so watching the dolphins swim around the boat and perform acrobatics for us (apparently it’s part of their hunting technique, but I saw the look on their faces, they were just showing off!) before being told that we were going to have to leave - booooo! The dolphins were amazing, they looked so happy, they came so so so close to us and they were just fascinating to watch. It would have been nicer to spend more time watching these but back to the whale we went. The captain of the boat used an instrument called a hydrophone to listen for the whale making noises below the surface. He then drove the boat right above the whale and when he could no longer hear the whale making the noises, apparently it meant that he was making his way to the surface, probably making noises at frequencies that humans couldn’t hear. Sure enough the whale surfaced once again, pretty much as soon as I walked out of the back door I saw it surfacing. A man called out ‘it’s up!’ (and then continued to boast to anyone who would listen to him that he spotted it first. Woohoo). We got to watch the whale from it’s other side for the second sighting ... pretty much the same but gives you the chance to get some photos from a different angle. Before we knew it he was swishing his tail back in the air again and diving down to crazy depths searching for dinner.

And that was that for whale watching ... Sperm whales are pretty impressive creatures and dolphins are really good fun, a pretty amazing day, although I think we echo the sentiments of a couple of people who we heard saying that it was good, but very expensive for what it was. So once we were dropped off back at Bertha we headed off for a second night in a row at a proper campsite (Cate wasn’t ‘mentally prepared’ for a DoC campsite apparently) not really knowing where we would be going next, exciting times.

Still not knowing where we were going to go the next morning, we got up, showered and charged up the netbook and camera. Our main problem with staying in DoC campsites are of course the toilets, but also the fact that we need to charge our netbook and our camera regularly. Bertha has a second battery which is great and is charged when the vehicle is running, and thus can run the fridge and small inside lights. However, it would be so much better if it charged the plug sockets too so that we wouldn’t need to use the proper campsites as often.

We thought we would just head up the coast towards Picton where we would be taking the ferry in a couple of days time. We stopped at a rest stop on the way which was right next to the sea and a lot of rocks that were home to some incredibly lazy seals. We parked up about four metres from a seal on a rock and had lunch, chilled out and enjoyed the sunshine. It was a really beautiful place and the road was a bit like the Great Ocean Road in Victoria - really good views all the way along.

Reaching Blenheim, we stopped to spend some time in a park, reading, blogging, lazing around in the sunshine and watching loads of crazy ducks in the little stream. I think it might have been mating season - the male ducks were fighting each other and following the females around. It was just like Leicester on a Saturday night.

Disenfranchised with the campervan cooking options available to us Cate suggested we treat ourselves to a meal out ... after taking ten minutes to check out the (limited) restaurants on offer in Blenheim we settled on a little local place called Bellaficos ... after looking at the menu from the outside it sounded pretty nice so we went into the restaurant, and that was when we smelt the horrible musty and greasy odour that, combined with the numerous flies in the air, helped us make the decision to turn around and walk out. So we headed instead to the Secret Garden, a nice looking little pub/wine bar with a little garden out the back. Cate (as ever) ordered the most expensive thing on the menu (steak) while I (as ever, cough cough) ordered the healthy option, a salad! Yeah whatever, as if Matt doesn’t eat his own meal and then half of mine too anway! After waiting for over an hour for our food it was no real surprise when Cate’s steak arrived cold ...Obviously I sent it back to be reheated but it really wasn’t a tasty piece of steak, it reminded me of the Porterhouse steak we had in St Kilda that was a huge disappointment too. Matt ended up eating most of the steak so I had a couple of small potatoes and some carrots. Nice. Oh and part of a side salad which I left after a small money spider fell from my fork as I raised some lettuce to my mouth. Oh dear. After finishing our meal we left with distinctly lighter pockets and an overwhelming feeling of regret, no more meals out for a while! So we headed to another DoC campsite for the night, via a chip-shop to quell Cate’s grumbling tummy after her meagre meal . There were three DoC campsites in the area we were going to and being the money conscious people we are (well definitely after that meal), we thought we’d try to go the basic, free campsite. To get there we had to go up a poorly marked, winding mountainous road. It became a bit of a ‘dodge the possum’ run which was cool as we got to see lots of possums. When we finally got to the gravel road up to the campsite, it looked a bit steep so we decided to go back to the first DoC campsite - a great decision as we parked in the beach carpark next to it and used the facilities anyway. Flushing toilets and running tap water. A real luxury!

We’d moved our Interisland ferry journey forward from the Tuesday to Easter Monday, so we awoke the next morning with only Easter Sunday to fill with south island entertainment and as we’d not been to Picton yet it seemed like the sensible thing to do. Easter Sunday already promised to be a very long day as the clock’s had gone back in the night for daylight saving so we’d gained an extra hour (our bodies weren’t aware of this however, so we woke up at what was now silly o’clock in the morning and being as it was Easter Sunday we had some mini-Crunchies for breakfast). Picton is smaller than we’d imagined, and after discounting taking a tramp due to post-Crunchie laziness there wasn’t much on the cards to entertain us, so we headed for a scenic drive along the edge of Queen Charlotte Sound towards Havelock. With our bodies still not adjusted to the daylight saving time and with boredom setting in fast, we stopped for our lunch at 10:30 in the morning at a rest stop near the sound where once again I got bitten on my feet and back by some horrid flies.

We arrived in Havelock, didn’t have any of their famous green-shell mussels as neither of us fancied them, found some free internet at a cafe where Matt was buying an ice-cream (surprise surprise) and then headed back to the campsite from the previous night where were read til it was dark, watched some of ‘Big Bang Theory’ on the netbook and waited until it was a sensible enough time to go to sleep.

Matt and Cate x

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Comments

[Sam O'Leary]

Conservation campsites
Hey, great post. Kaikoura is a spectacular place, no often you see the mountains and the sea in such proximity. Glad to hear you're using the DOC campsites around the show. If you're interested, check out this blog we posted about our campsites: http://wp.me/pzRzg-td also a quick link to where you can find our campsites: http://www.doc.govt.nz/camping Thanks Sam O'Leary DOC Web Team.