A bright and early start today and we left our hotel room at Christchurch and headed off towards Kaikōura. Our friends had already gone by the time we woke as their flight was early, so we got a transfer bus and picked up our new car and headed off to spend the day travelling to Kaikōura, we couldn’t get into our air bnb till 3pm so we were in no rush.
We drove along the long straight roads with nearly no traffic and took a few detours to explore the coastal areas along the route, and it was well worth it the long beaches in sunshine were magnificent, we even found a small lake to eat our picnic and enjoy the local birdlife, and another first for me was to watch a New Zealand Warbler singing its heart out in a tree over a lake full of Black Swans and low flying Swallows.
As we approach Kaikōura the road started to follow the bright blue coast line through tunnels carved out of the steep cliffs, and it wasn’t long before we pulled over having spotted Fur Seals just lazing by the road. We spent a while watching the, and taking photos in the very bright sun, before spotting something in the sea, it was a Super Pod of Dusky Dolphins moving towards Kaikōura!
There must have been over a hundred dolphins, swimming and jumping out of the sea, and it was an amazing site so we watched till they went round a headland out of view, jumped in the car and drove ahead of them, then parked up and watched again, we did this till we ran out of parking spots and the road went slightly more inland. Our first Dolphins of the trip and so many of them, we entered Kaikōura with a smile on our faces.
The town itself was a long straight road on the banks of the sea, with shops and restaurants all along its length. Our house for the next five days was outside of town on a quiet section of beach right next to the beach. It was a wooden house on a decking with an outside bath as well as one inside, its own goat in the field and a large cat wandering about. Inside it was filled with reclaimed wood, and even vintage utensils and furniture repurposed from a local theatre. It did however have all mod cons and we were happy to be spending our last days in New Zealand here. The end of the day was spent with a walk along the beach and a wander around town, followed by a superb meal in a pub right on the headland next to the beach watching fur seals and whitefaced Herons.
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