South Island - Kaikoura

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Last two days in Kaikoura. We journeyed up from Christchurch, a pleasant drive, stopping at Cheviot for lunch, the place where my maternal Grandmother grew up. (I have memories of visiting there as a five year old and trying to milk a cow by hand on the farm she grew up on). Getting closer to Kaikoura it's still easy to see the effects of the enormous forces the 2016 earthquake brought. Land torn and broken and roads still being worked on but the most dramatic sight was the uplifted coastline with the exposed former seabed only too clear. Quite incredible.

Our reason for stopping in Kaikoura was to get on a whale watch trip and we had "planned" to do that the day after we arrived, Wednesday, then we were heading for Picton on Thursday to get the ferry home. Our "plans" turned out to be glorious hopes when we found that whale watch doesn't operate on Wednesdays at the moment. What to do? They'd told us that the Thursday trip which we could have done if we changed our ferry booking to a later time, was al booked out so that wasn't looking likely. We thought, stuff it, we'll give it a go anyway. The office wasn't open so I wrote a grovelling email setting out our plight and we changed our ferry booking in hope.

Kaikoura is a charming wee town. It has suffered a lot from the Covid effect as it depends hugely on tourism but seemed to be battling on as best it could. The scenery of the coastline is spectacular and the mountain backdrop just as much. The town's museum is well worth a visit. It has some dramatic accounts/photos of the earthquake's impact along with interesting local history.

We both rode our bikes. Quite a few bike trails around the area to explore if one had more time. I played 9 holes of golf at the local course. After carting a half set of clubs around for three weeks I thought I'd better justify their presence.

The Pier Hotel turned out to be a great place for dinner. Cheerful pub atmosphere, friendly staff, good food, great views across the water; we enjoyed ourselves very much.

Next day - were we going to get on a whale watch boat. We turned up really early to be told that we'd have to come back in an hour or so to see if there were any cancellations. Went back in half an hour and a kindly gentleman told me that "Yes, Mr House, we have two spaces booked for you - we received your email." Yeeha!!

So, on the catamaran with 40 others. Out into the Pacific Ocean rocking and rolling as we got into the big swells and slightly broken seas further out. Lyn and I had taken seasick pills beforehand but even so we were concentrating hard on keeping our stomachs in one piece. Many around us not so fortunate. It was worse when we stopped to listen for whales via sonar dropped from the boat on cables. Going onto the deck outside meant fresh air but also whiffs of diesel fumes which upset some stomachs even more.

We had to give it to the skipper though. He sniffed out the whales and took us to them. In fact we saw three in the time we were out. They were on the surface, spouting and taking in oxygen for more dives then they would sound, the tails came up and down they went for a 1000 metres into the canyon that drops off very close to the coastline. Very dramatic.

And then on the road to, firstly Blenheim to see old friends, Judy and Neal, then to Picton for the late ferry and arrival home at around 11.30 pm. Three and a half weeks of the best holiday we both thought we'd had. Seeing parts of the country neither of us had seen before and doing it without crowds of tourists around. Spectacular beautiful scenery, friendly people, good food, interesting sights easy driving.....and, a small bonus, parking no problem :-)

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