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Published: December 26th 2013
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Friday 20th December, 2013. Alpine Pacific Triangle Drive & Whale Watch Trip
We left Hanmer Springs fairly promptly as we had a whale watching tour booked for 3 pm this afternoon in Kaikoura. On the way out of town we stopped at the Waiau river Bridge Lookout again and took some more pictures. It is amazing how much prettier everything looks in the sunshine. We continued with the Alpine Pacific Triangle Drive and made our way down to the coast to Gore Bay which is a coastal settlement close to Chiviot on the South Island. From 1856 Gore bay was used as the gateway into the historic Cheviot Hills property owned by William ‘ready money’ Robinson. Small coastal vessels anchored in the bay bringing essential supplies, materials and passengers. Surf boats were used to ferry goods and passengers onto the beach. Bullock drays were then used to transport the goods into Cheviot Hills. It has a great surfing beach, two campsites and numerous holiday homes but only 14 permanent residents. We took some photos of the bay and the cliffs and then continued through the town to Cathedral Gully Lookout which was our first destination for today. The gully is
a spectacular weathered canyon with clay cliffs called the Cathedral Cliffs. They were given this name because the fluted cliffs are said to resemble a cathedral. They were quite impressive and the gully was incredibly deep.
We returned to Cheviot passing a property called Lyndon Lea on the way. M had to take a photo of this as her uncle and aunt's pad in Essex has the same name (spelled differently) and that is where we would have been this Christmas if we hadn't come on this trip. We drove north on Highway No 1 until we reached Kaikoura. We found the YH very easily. It is quite a long way out from the centre. We had arrived in time to do some shopping so we went to the New World to get some supplies. On the way we stopped at the Whaleweigh Station where we would need to check in for our tour. We were told that there was a chance that the trip may be cancelled because of the strong winds. After talking to the lady on the desk we booked a reserve trip for tomorrow which we can cancel if the trip goes ahead. We returned
to the hostel and had a ham roll and a glass of wine then we made our way back to the Whaleweigh Station.
We arrived and, joy of joys, the trip was going ahead. We collected our boarding passes and then sat around until 3.30 when we were ushered in to a movie room for a safety talk. The tour would (hopefully) enable us to encounter sperm whales up close in their natural habitat. Although a sighting is not guaranateed the tour company had a 99 percent success rate of sighting at least one of these magnificent creatures.
The sperm whale is the largest of all toothed whales and largest living toothed animal. The whale was named after the milky-white waxy substance, spermaceti, found in its head and originally mistaken for sperm. This type of whale was made famous in Herman Melville's novel "Moby-Dick". Adult males can measure up to 20.5 metres (67 ft) long. Their distinctive shape comes from their very large head, particularly in males, which is typically one-third of the animal's length. The brain of the sperm whale is the largest and heaviest known of any modern or extinct animal (weighing on
average 7 kilograms
(15 lb) in a grown male). However, the brain proportionately weighs less than half the brain size of a human when body size is factored in to the equation. M had seen Humpback and Fin Whales before but never a Sperm Whale.
Their blowhole is situated very close to the front of the head and shifted to the whale's left. This gives rise to a distinctive bushy blow or spout angled forward. The sperm whale has no true dorsal fin, instead a series of ridges are present on its back. The fluke (tail) is triangular and very thick. Flukes are lifted very high out of the water before a whale begins a deep dive which is what everyone wants to get a snap of. These whales dive on average for 45 minutes and are only on the surface for 5 - 10 minutes. Luckily we were on a really fast catermaran which could zoom over to where a whale had been spotted very quickly. We all had to be inside and sitting down when they did this for safety
reasons. The boats don't use anything other than a keen eye and a hydrophone which can be dipped into the
water and the crew can then listen for the distinctive clicks that are emitted by the whale as it feeds. When the clicks cease the whale is either on its way to the surface or sleeping. THe louder the clicks the closer the whale. After about half an hour we reached the part of the ocean where it shelves very deeply. This is where the whales hunt their favourite food - squid. They can dive very deeply to catch their prey. We had our first sighting almost immediately. We watched it spout and rest as it prepared for its next dive. We watched for about 5 minutes and then up came the tail and down it went. It was fantastic. A real priviledge to see.
Sperm whales have 20–26 pairs of cone-shaped teeth in their lower jaw, each 8–20 cm (3–8 in) long. Each tooth can weigh as much as one kilogram. The reason for the existence of the teeth is not known with certainty. It is believed that they are not necessary for feeding on squid, and indeed healthy well-fed sperm whales have been found in the wild without teeth. The current scientific consensus is that the teeth
may be used for aggression between males of the same species. This hypothesis is consistent with the conical shape and wide spacing of the teeth. Furthermore bull sperm
whales often show scars which seem to be caused by the teeth of other bulls. Rudimentary teeth are also present in the upper jaw, but these rarely leave the jaw bone and cannot be seen in the mouth. Sperm whales are amongst the most sexually dimorphic (that is, males and females differ greatly) of all cetaceans. Males are typically 30% to 50% longer than females and are twice as massive. At birth both males and females are about 4 m (13 ft) in length and weigh 1 tonne. All this information was being presented to us as the crew searched for another whale. We zoomed off and the
hydrophone was put into the water again. Then we were treated to our second sighting. D got a great picture of the flukes as it dived.
We were all ushered back inside the cabin and the guide explained that all the whales here were male as it is too cold for the females and their calves. Pods of females and young live separately
from older males. Females give birth once every four to six years, and the gestation period is at least 12 months and possibly as long as 18 months. Nursing takes place for two to three years. In males, puberty lasts for about ten years between the ages of about 10 and 20. Males continue to grow into their 30s and 40s and only reach their full size when about 50 years old. Sperm whales live
for up to 80 years. Our guide told us that it was normal to sight one whale, a bonus to see two and exceptional to see three or more on one trip. Then we were off again! We zoomed across the sea in the cat to where two other whale watch boats were already watching a whale on the surface. We joined them and the captain of our boat got us into a fantastic position to watch it dive from directly behind the tail. We had now seen three dives - how lucky is that? We returned to the harbour and although we hadn't seen any pods of Dusky Dolphins or Pilot Whales (which happens frequently) we
felt very lucky and privileged to have seen
what we did.
We returned to the YH where we bumped in to the couple we had been talking to in Hanmer Springs. We passed some time chatting to them before dinner. M then went to see Kuini (pronounced Queenie) the warden to arrange an internet connection. We have another day here tomorrow as we wanted to make sure that we could do the whale watching tour.
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