Kaikura
Monday—Thursday February 16-19, 2015
The 6,979 mile/11,231 kilometer trip to Christchurch was via Auckland. We left on a Saturday and arrived at Auckland Airport about 6:00 in the morning on Monday. Our flight arrived in Christchurch about 10:30 and left in our rental car for Kaikoura.
Google Maps and Apple’s iWeb application (which has been used for this blog) do not work well together any longer; clicking on a link does not work. An interactive map of our trip is available, but on a separate page.
The map below is a blow up of the area around Kaikoura.
Our route up from Christchurch is the blue line. Our lodge was at B, a few miles north of the town.
Our first stop was to the north at the blue start, Ohau Stream Walkway and Waterfall to see New Zealand Fur Seals.
When we arrived at the beach, babies were active. Click below for a video. If the video does not display correctly, here is the link.
The trail up to the waterfall is through a dimly–lit forest. The baby seals walk up the trail when they are young and frolic in the pond at the base of the waterfall.
The baby seals, we understand, were here last month. Must be quite a sight!
This is the view back out at the ocean. There is a lot of kelp, and the seals are napping in the sun.
We drove back into town for a walk out onto the limestone shore platform at low tide, and then went to the Whale Watch office to take a boat out to Kaikoura Canyon, 5,200 feet/1,600 meters deep. The office is at the star just above the name of the town on the map.
It turns out that the body of a Sperm Whale is mostly underwater, so photographing them isn’t easy. The whale sits on the surface to breathe, and then the tail flips up, and down goes the whale to feed at the bottom of the canyon.
Here is a whale just starting its dive.
The next photograph shows how close the deep canyon is to the land, and a sperm whale exhaling upon surfacing.
Whale watching at Kaikoura is a big business. Besides boats, there are planes that fly over the surfaced whales. Apparently they can see the body of a whale from the air, but don’t get much of a look at the tail fluke.
As we worked back to the dock, we got to see many fur seals.
The next day, we went to the dolphin tour office and back out on a boat to the same area to look for Dusky Dolphins. There were quite a few dolphins, and they like to leap right out of the sea, twisting and turning before plunging back in.
This photograph shows that the dolphins get right next to the boat.
Most of the tourists on our boat donned wet suits and went swimming with the dolphins. We found it too cold. Here is a dolphin between two snorkelers from our boat.
Afterward, we went for a walk up in the hills on the Kaikoura Peninsula Walkway. Great views, and the area we walked on yesterday was now under water at high tide.
Heading back to our car, we came across more posing seals.
After a 12 hour flight to Auckland, we transferred to a flight to Christchurch on South Island. At the airport we rented a car and drove north to Kaikoura to see seals, whales and dolphins.
Next—a long car drive south to Twizel, on the way to Aoraki/Mount Cook National Park.
