Whales, Seals and Kayaks

Our next destination was Kaikoura, on the east coast. This small town is on the tourist map because of the deep drop in the sea depth which attracts whales of many kinds. Some male sperm whales have made this place their home and they can be seen year round. The drive down the coast was quite pretty, but Oren spent most of the time worrying we would get stuck without petrol...

We arrived in town, walked around the two streets and prepared for our whale trip the next morning. The boat took us out to open water and we looked for the whales using some sort of 'whale radio' - the captain of the boat put this thing in the water and listened to them 'talk' in order to find them. The sperm whales hang out for 10 minutes on the surface, breathing and resting, before diving for 50 minutes. When we found the first whale we just stared at it breathing until it made a beautiful slow dive into the deep water.

We managed to catch a film of one of the dives. On the way back we were accompanied by a group of playful dolphins. We were both as excited as school kids as they jumped and swam around the boat.

After Kaikoura we drove back north, relying on the weather report that promised us some sun. Our plan was to visit the Abel Tasman National Park and do a one day kayak trip in the marine reserve. There you can spot seals and if you are super lucky (we weren't) even small penguins.

It was a nice day in the sun, working on our paddling muscles and enjoying the views. As seasoned river canoers we already applied our experience when facing the sea waves :-)

Today we had a long day on the road, driving south along the west coast. We broke our trip with a stop at the 'pancake rocks' - interesting and bizzar rock formations along the coast.
Most of the view along the way was grey sky, brown coast and big rocks in the sea.

p.s.

We still haven't seen any penguins apart from the ones on the road signs, but we are not giving up yet.