Blogs from Kaikoura, South Island, New Zealand, Oceania - page 15

This is going to be a short entry, because I'm quite a bit behind in my blog and there's just so many things I'm seeing here, so I'll let the pictures speak for the most part. After arriving on the South Island, I drove straight to Kaikoura. Quite a nice and small town. I wanted to do whale watching there, but I found out that the whales that ususally hang out there had left area to meet the females and mate far our in the open sea... So instead, I booked a tour to watch Albatross, the biggest birds on the planet, with a wingspan of up to 3.6 metres! Near Kaikoura are also a lot of furry seals relaxing on the rocks or playing in the water. I hope I can do the whale watching ... read more

Well it was another early start for me today the alarm went off while the little hand was still in the 5am slot. Well just but still that's still pretty early. Today I'm moving from Christchurch to Kiakoura and hopefully see some whales.  The bus journey of yesterday has killed any desire for more torture so I'm going on the train, the tranzcoastal to be exact.  It's still dark as i arrive at the station and again I can hear the big diesel engine throbbing in the gloom, my luggage is stowed and labelled so it doesn't beat me to Wellington, and I take my seat, it's still not 7am, what am I doing to myself? It only takes me about half an hour to realise, I see the sun rise over the canterbury plains, flat ... read more

I went for a "dolphin encounter" with a guy from the bus. I did encounter many, many dolphins (thank god - it was very expensive). We arrived at the centre and were kitted up in full length wetsuits (with little hoods for your head) along with flippers and snorkels. We then sat in afore-mentioned wetsuits for about an hour total (before finally getting in the water). There was a safety briefing (my favourite advice was: don't try and breathe underwater). Then we were driven to the right harbour (not the obvious one in front of us, of course). Then there was a 20 minute trip to get to the pod of dolphins (where they had last seen them). There were about five HUNDRED dolphins. Literally, everywhere you looked there were dolphins. They are dusky dolphins, and ... read more

Windy roads, whales and freedom camping again!!! With getting off the ferry very late, Nath and I pulled ourselves together just long enough to get to the DOC campsite. It was along a windy road that resembled your lower intestine, and driving it tired in the dark and for the first time, meant that it wasn’t the easiest drive. Nath struggled to see round right hand bends because the window frame was always in his way and the corners were so tight the head lights were pretty useless, so on occasion we came very close to hitting the ditch on the left hand side. I’d rather that though than the other side, which when we saw in the light of day was a cliffs edge that would have made us very nervous had we known and ... read more

On Feb 3rd, I went on the stray bus for the first time in over 3 months. I went with Stray to Kaikoura, however upon arriving in town I met up with Jill who I had met in Christchurch a couple of days before. We took an hour’s walk down to the sea colony. While we didn’t see too many seals (we only saw 2), the rock formations along the shore were amazing and were like nothing I’ve seen before. The night, we didn’t another pub quiz, this time we didn’t stay the whole time - we were doing very well, but it was 2 ½ hours in and still only have way through. Way too long for any pub quiz!... read more