Kaikoura

We arrived into Kaikoura to try and view some whales. Kaikoura attracts whales due to the depth of the water, less than 2 kilometres from the coast there is an underwater canyon which is over 1000 metres deep. Ideal for whales to relax and eat lots of squid!

We arrived into Kaikoura with beautiful sunshine to be told that, all whale watching tours had been cancelled for the last few days, due to bad weather. Therefore there was a large backlog of bookings waiting to happen. Not expecting to get a chance to view any whales, we booked ourselves on a waitlist for the day and went off to explore a few of the views from the hilltops.

The views were spectacular and there was just so much wildlife around, from seals, to albatrosses and various other sea birds, which names escape us. Having taken in the beautiful views and the incredible blue colour of the sea, we made our way to the whale centre to find out whether we had made it on any of the tours. We stood in the waitlist queue, which felt like some kind of audition or interview as the lucky names were called out. Having been there since 12pm, we finally got our call up at 1.15pm.

We were then bused down to the port and transfered onto a massive speed boat, which took us out into the deep ocean where we would have the opportunity of seeing a few sperm whales. We were more than lucky and were able to site five sperm wales, which was quite unusual (or so they told us). It was incredible to be so close to these magnificent creatures swimming past the boat, squirting water into the air with a big blast and revealing just how enormous they were as the wave broke over them.

When the whales have had enough of roaming the sea, they dive down, around sixty metres into the depths of the sea leaving spectators with a picture perfect flicker of a whale's tale. Once down, they will not resurface for a good few hours. On all five attempts, we kept trying to get the perfect whale tail picture, but failing each time, we resort to videoing it instead.

Watching these massive whales was such an incredible experience and we were then taken over to a group of playful dolphins.

There must have been about fifty to a hundred of them and they absolutely loved playing with the boat, chasing it and also jumping out of the sea numerous of times as though they were performing to the people watching them.

They seemed so tranquil, yet at the same time having the best time, full of fun. We couldn't wait for our experience to swim with dolphins, having seen how playful this lot had behaved, but we would have to wait until near the end of the trip.

After a fantastic day we headed down to Christchurch for the night, after circling the city centre a few times we managed to find our accommodation for the night. This would be the final night in our perspex windowed van. After four days, the sticky tape seemed to have come away, leaving a terrible draught to sleep in. Also there were only so many nights we could tolerate sleeping on the remains of the shattered glass from the incident.

Sam's comments: Due to EJ's directions (or as E-J says"a bad map")I seem to know Christchurch city centre better than most! The whales where a joy to watch.

E-J's comments: Kaikoura is a very special place and I feel so priviledged to have seen these mammals of such incredible size and grace. The dolphins were also just so happy and playful, making it a perfect day.