Kaikoura - what a wonderful wee place and it was the start of my lone adventures once again after 6 amazing weeks with Mariano, my mum & dad, and my Irish buddies. Ideally, my bus dropped me off right outside the hostel i had booked so i left my bags and took my hungover self along to the nearest chippy for my first feed of the day. Safe to say i was in bed for about 9.30pm as i knew i would need to get up early to decide on what to do with my day. Kaikoura is one of the best places in the world to view marine mammals (dolphins, seals and whales) so most of the activities are centred around that. I was toying with swimming with dolphins or kayaking, but just cos i wasn't in the mood to freeze my a*&e off swimming in the sea i chose the kayaking! It turned out to be an amazing afternoon, spent mainly kayaking around the rocks of the peninsula where the seal colony is. There were only 3 of us on the tour so i ended up in a boat with the tour guy. I was quite relieved about this cos i meant all i had to do was paddle, and not stress about steering around the minefield of rocks! The sun was blazing down all day so that kept us warm on the chilly sea..and made the views even more spectacular. The trip lasted about 4 hours and in that time i seen countless seals laying about on the rocks, lazy creatures that they are, and a few in the sea swimming beside us. However every time i carefully took my camera out for a photo they would go under and swim away again..how annoying! Anyway, all in all it was a great trip and i would recommend it to anyone who comes here..most of all it was my first time sea kayaking and i didn't get soaked haha.
I was only planning on staying 2 nights here but i've extended it to 3 as i really like it here and the weather has been dry and sunny (still cold though!). So today (Monday) i went on a walking trail around the peninsula which takes around 3-4 hours. Just my kinda walk as it's not too long but still some steep parts to tire you out. This took me round to the cove where i was kayaking the day before and i also passed beaches where the whalers used to go out to sea (when it was legal to kill whales!) I must have passed about 6 people in the first 2 hours so safe to say it was quite peaceful and secluded. The views around there were also amazing, it's one of the few places in the world where you can see high mountains literally on the sea. I didn't see any whales at all but walked past the wee seal colony again and then headed back on the road along towards the town. There were some great houses up there on the hill too, definitely somewhere i would think about retiring haha..the best sea views and it was so secluded!
In the evening i had a craving for fish n chips, they are so fresh here and dirt cheap compared to Oz and home actually. Like 3 pounds for a supper..no bad at all! I met a few people in the hostel that night who had just arrived so we ended up watching the New Zealand movie - Boy. I had heard it was a great film and it lived up to my expectations, very funny but some really sad parts too. It's basically about a young Maori boy growing up somewhere in NZ in the 80's and he's obsessed with Michael Jackson haha, his dad has mental issues and his mum died giving birth to his brother. So i won't give anymore away incase you decide to watch it sometime!
I'm now heading up the coast towards Nelson and the Abel Tasman National park to spend a few days before ferrying it over to the North Island. Hopefully i'll get some more good walks and cycles in while i'm there and you'll see plenty more updates from me on here..xx
