The Beautiful, beautiful South Island
Trip Start
May 06, 2010
1
71
79
Trip End
Dec 17, 2010
Kaikoura, South Island, New Zealand
Sunday, October 24, 2010
I was so right to do so. There was a mood change the minute we arrived at Kaikoura and everyone felt it. Snow capped hills in the distance, lakes and lush green fields produced post card perfect scenery which was stunning.
En route to Kaikoura we stopped off to view the Ohau seal colony. Rather unusually though we were lead away from the waterfront and along a forest trail. A few minutes walk led us to a waterfall where there were about 10 baby seals splashing around. The seals pups come here each winter whilst their mums are feeding in the sea as it gives them protection. They were so cute but pretty impossible to photograph as they never stopped moving...some things you just to remember!
At that point we were offered the chance to do a 45K cycle. I was OK with that but everyone else only wanted to do 20K so I agreed to a shorter ride. Jimmy was supposed to drop us off further along the road but he forgot! We ended up having a cycle ride so short it wasn't worth bothering with which was a real shame as it was such a nice coast line. To try and cover over his maistake Jimmy was promoting the fact that we were now able to join in the afternoons walk as were back so quickly. Luckily for him the walk was so lovely that it detract frommissing out on the cycle!
The walk took us along the cost line, passing through fields of cows before rejoining the cliff path and walking down to the harbour. The views of hills and seas were stunning and the colours were so intense that it was a trye joy to be out in the countryside. We were finally getting the NZ experience I wanted.
That afternoon we were offered the chance to go fishing. I had wanted to go fishing my whole trip but it so expensive in most places I hadn't been able to do it. I therefore jumped at the chance to go forgetting the fact that me and water don't mix well!
About 7 of us went and were offered the chance to stay nearer shore in calmer waters but with less fish or go out where the fish were more dense but it was a bit rough. We were there to fish so there seemed little point staying close to shore, so putting my sea sickness aside I voted for rougher waters. The ride out was great - wind in your face, bouncing over waves at high speed. It was exhilarating. Then the boat stopped and it was swaying heavily and I immediately began to feel nauseous. I focused on the fishing and we were shown how to drop the lines and then we all got our rods and started to fish. I was sick after about 3 minutes! The guy running the boat was so sweet, he totally brushed over it. I caught a fish which took my mind off being sick for a few minutes but it didn't last long! I was sick twice more but was determined not to let it spoil the experience so kept on trying to catch a fish. I didn't get any more, probably because I hadn't realised for ages that my bait had been nibbled away so I was trying to tempt fish with an empty line!. Kate was our star fisher- she got 5 I think, including two nice cods. I couldn't focus too much on what Kate was doing as she was sitting at the back of the boat and if I looked at her, all I could see was the horizon rising and falling which made me really queasy so I had to stop looking over her direction!
The other fantastic thing about our fishing trip was that we got to see lovely sea birds and dolphins!
Sadly, I have no pictures as I just couldn't handle trying to focus a camera when I felt so ill! We saw these huge albatross and these huge gulls called Mollymawks which have colours over their eyebrows so they just look really mean and evil!
The dolphins were swimming fairly close to the boat in very small numbers and we saw them 3 times. We had been hoping to view them when we went out as we knew it was a possibility so it was superb to see them.
All in all a fantastic day!
