Kaikoura - Whales – what Whales

Saturday 5th November
Daily Mileage 247
Cumulative Mileage 1,391

An early start today as we had to be on the road by 7am. Paulina prepared an organic breakfast for us, insisting we started with a hot lemon and ginger drink to cleanse our sinuses. This was followed by organic yogurt, muesli, grapes, dates, dried apricots soaked in redbush tea rounded off with a small cheese omelette. She also gave us some croissants for the road.

I drove the first couple of hours to Kaikoura; the roads were quiet as it was early so we bowled along nicely, eating up the miles, snaking round the mountains along the windy roads. At one point I found myself following two gorgeous vintage cars, a Bentley and a Rolls Royce open top. The Roller was racing along pulling away from the Bentley and me at one point (and I was going at the speed limit of 100kph), then the Bentley put his foot down and tore off away from me too. I was left just pootling along. After a while I caught up with the Bentley and we spent a few miles behind it admiring it. It had a black roof and a gunmetal grey body, with the spare tyre in a matching metal cover on the boot. There were big spotlight lights on the front and the man driving it had a wide brimmed straw hat, which oddly seemed to suit the car. For vintage cars, they sure had a turn of speed and could, if asked, zip along and more than hold their own against modern cars. Finally, the driver of the Roller held a yellow padded gloved hand aloft in the way a policeman does to stop traffic, this was obviously a signal to his mate in the Bentley that they were going to stop as they both slowed down and pulled over.

After a stop for a takeaway cuppa – sorry no photo as it was at a roadside café and not very picturesque, Peter took over driving. A little way outside of Kaikoura we spotted a few motorhomes and cars pulled into a large parking bay by the edge of the sea. It looked interesting and we wanted to stretch our legs so we also parked up. When we got out of the car we saw there was a colony of seals all around us in the rocks by the sea. People were wandering around taking photos, it was very relaxed and we joined in. There were large male seals claiming territory on the top of big rocks, chasing off smaller seals who dared to try to clamber up. Most of them were lying on rocks in the sun just resting and sleeping, but some of the youngsters were messing around in the water the way juveniles do. It was an entertaining and relaxing break for half an hour or so.

We arrived at the Whaling Station early and adjourned to the café which was a bit of a disaster as they forgot my food and Peter and Janet’s chicken and vegetable soup was lukewarm and greasy on top – not nice. Then there was an announcement, the whaling trip was cancelled as the spotter planes had not been able to locate any in the area at all. We were very disappointed but realise that wildlife is unpredictable so it couldn’t be helped. We went on the waiting list for a later trip but that too was cancelled. So instead we checked into our B&B, Nikau Lodge to dump our bags off and went into town to browse around then headed to Half Moon Bay to explore the rock pools. There were some seals there too, not nearly as many as we had seen earlier on. There was one with a big bite mark on its back. A local said he had been caught by a boat propeller and was being watched to make sure he is ok. He had been around the beach for about a week.
We are on the wait list for whale watching tomorrow afternoon and if that fails we can get a plane to fly over them instead so we are keeping our fingers crossed they may come back into the area tomorrow.

I have included a photo of the view from our bedroom window. Our B&B is on a headland over the town with beautiful sea views.Read more