Campervan and Whales

We had a lovely breakfast again at the b and b and Spoodle the dog was very pleased that Edward didn't eat most of his bacon. Margaret sold the kids on visiting Hanmer Springs, but we didn't really have time in the schedule.

We cleared the car and took a sad farewell photo with it, then headed to Wilderness campervans, getting there about 9.30. We were met by Bonnie and offered coffee, a good start. Unfortunately things went quite slowly from there - we started the check in process then Bonnie had to deal with a problem on the phones that took quite a while. Eventually she suggested we went into our camper and started to unpack. We got a free bbq and camping chairs and table with the hire, but they took up a lot of room in the external storage so we decided to leave them behind and use the space to store our many bags. The kids chose the 5 free dvd rentals we got with the hire. A fellow hirer was an Aussie called Brian and his wife Helen who had rented before and as Sam said (Knew everything but actually knew nothing". He was certainly a character!!

Eventually we were shown how the camper worked, a whistle stop tour, - we hoped to remember the salient point. Our van needed a fill up with water and so whilst this was being sorted I went to take the car back to Apex, a simple process, then someone from Wilderness picked me up and took me back.

We were ready for off and had a photo with the van to begin the adventure then we were off. The van was slower than a car but cruised along reasonably well, though yet to master exactly how the cruise control works, bit hit and miss! Maximum speed is 90km/h not the 100 of cars so journeys a little slower and the crockery rattles a bit!

We arrived at Kaikoura just after 3pm - the last half hour of the journey had been quite windy and made everyone feel a little bit queasy, but the road hugged the coastline right down at sea level, with waves breaking on the rocks. We went straight to the helicopter whale watching office on Whaleway Station road and checked in. As the helicopter only held three people we needed two and the guys suggested we did one trip after another with two people going twice.

After a safety briefing we donned lifejackets (folded up around our waist) and were told a bit about the whales. Sperm whales were the residents, the third largest whale and the largest with teeth that hunts other fish, squids, grouper, stingray. Some of the fish are faster than the whales but the sonar they use to hunt by can be turned up and used to stun the prey.. Orcas are seen every few weeks and dolphins too. The whales here are males, the females live closer to the equator and the younger males move to other areas to find food until they are ready to breed. The whales here are about 25-45 years old and live to about 70 years old.

Sam, Tash and Ed went off first whilst I moved the campervan nearer. They saw several whales, including a very unusual sight of two whales fighting - they were swimming directly at each other and then veering off and te last moment - normally they just keep themselves to themselves. Tash got a good shot of the classic tail as the whale dived (they stay on the surface for about 10 minutes between dives, surfacing every half hour or so).

They returned and I hopped in for Sam. Tash didn't want to go again as she was feeling a bit queasy so just Ed and I went. The views were great and we saw a pod of Hector's dolphins just off Kaikoura point. Then spotted our first whale, who dived quite quickly after we had seen him. Then we headed towards where the pair were seen before and they were still there swimming alongside each other. Our pilot was talking to a Whalewatch plane too who said he had seen a big pod of dolphins, which we also then flew over - there were 100's of them. We watched the two whales swimming side by side for several minutes then headed off to another single whale that we watched for a few minutes before it did the classic dive.

So four whales altogether, lots of dolphins and then we floew over the rocks on the point on the way back and saw hundreds of seals basking.

After landing we headed to our campsite, Top 10 Kaikoura and plugged the electric in. The van soon warmed up and we had to turn the heating right down as we were too hot! No tv signal so we watched a dvd then went to bed and all had a decent night's sleep, Tash above the cab, Ed on the drop down table bed and Sam and I on the permanent bed at the back.Read more