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What an awesome day. I got the bus up from chch it took 2 1/2hrs. We passed amberley and balcairn cemeteries on the way and i wished i had a car so i could've stopped in and looked for the gravestones of my family members who were buried around there.
The bus driver was hilarious, he told pig hunting stories on the way up and chatted about all the different places he'd been. He said I don't want to go see the dolphins coz all they do is mate all day and told me about Kaikoura the town was dying before whale watch came along. I didn't believe him about the dolphins. (But I later found out he was right.)
I went to the Kaikoura visitors centre but apparently its moved in the last 2 weeks because when i called them about 3 wks ago they said they did luggage storage but when i went in there they said no they don't. I was annoyed. Then i walked around took some photos did a survey for some guys wandering around asking people about kaikoura then i walked the very long 35mins to the backpackers. They did warn me when i called to book that it was a way out of town but i forgot that i would be carrying at 13kg backpack on my back. However, the view when I got there was SO worth it! It was so stunningly beautiful.
I've been through kaikoura before, but it was on a bus at night and we only stopped for a short time this was something else. The reception girl was lovely she said i had the best room in the place coz it looked out on the city and the mountains, and when i got upstairs i discovered nobody else had checked in yet! so i got the best bed by the massive window woohoo! i'm sure sunrise will be amazing to look at. Im so looking forward to it.
So i hung out and had lunch at the hostel then walked down to Dolphin encounter where i was going to go out to see to look at dusky dolphins. They showed us a 15min information video about what to do and how to act (more for the swimmers who were paying twice as much as me for the privilege of jumping into the ocean in a wetsuit) Very informative. Then we boarded the bus which took us over the peninsula (i never knew kaikoura was its own peninsula) and to the boats. They had a big group so they split into two boats which i thought was hilarious since when i booked 2 days before the lady had said the trip might be cancelled as they had to have a minimum of 8 people or the trip wouldn't go ahead - and here we had about 25. I think a big tour group showed last minute or something.
The dolphins were amazing! it took us about 25mins to get out to where they were, they were swimming away very fast so we chased them for a while then the swimmers got into the water. They were supposed to make sounds to entice the dolphins over but none of them were making much noise as far as i could tell. I became quite trigger happy with my camera since everywhere they were jumping out of the water or swimming past. There were hundreds of them! (and here i'd been expecting maybe 3 or 4) it was so cool. They were jumping around, racing the boat, darting everywhere, moving in synch in little groups, and of course there was the one show off who just kept doing spiralling flips out of the water. The swimmers got in the boat and out once or twice more before the horn blast for them to get back in. we drove around a bit more to take some photos (and videos) and then headed back to land.
When i got back to the hostel i asked to hire a bike and they said i could but it had to be back by dark 6pm, but they only charged me one hours hire (even though it was only just after 4pm) so i biked up around to Kean bay where the seals colony is. There weren't that many seals at that late hour but i got photos of a few of them and then climbed up to the lookout to take more photos over the bay. When the sun started setting all the colours came out - pink and gold it was so amazingly beautiful, especially where the colours were coming out behind the mountains. If i were an artist I would try to capture it in paint, but alas I'm not. I kept looking down to where I'd locked up the bike to check that it was still there.
On the way back there were these guys selling fresh fish, cray and fritters on the side of the road, so i stopped there for dinner and had a crayfish fritter with salad made into a sandwich. It was so delicious. It was the perfect ending to a beautiful day on the seashore, stopping in and having a hot bite to eat.
Photos to come
