Whale Watching & 3m swells!

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  Kaikoura, New Zealand
Monday, July 30, 2007

We managed to locate our campsite in the darkness we hooked up the van to the electrics and figured out how everything worked.  As we were all tired or jet lagged (Sarah's parents had travelled from old blighty via Singapore - which is a fair old way) we just had good old sausage sarnies for tea and spent our first night in our new home.  Let me just briefly describe our campervan home, me and Sarah slept above the driver in a rather cosy little space (we could not sit up) access gained by ladder, at the back were two seat and a table for driving in which became Sheila and Peter's beds at night, there was also a microwave, cooker, sink and toilet/shower - very cosy.

Next morning we were up early and across the park to brave the shower facilities, had brekkie and made our way to the whale watching place.  We arrived only to find out that it had been cancelled due to fog but that we could try again in the afternoon.  So we jumped back in the campervan and drove to a pace just up the coast where there was a seal colony.  Once we got their it didn't take long for us to find them as some were laid on the grass right next to the car park, they were quite big and looked rather odd as they pulled themselves along or rubbed their backs on the rock as if they had an itch.  We walked up the to the viewing platform where we could look down over the cliffs and view all the seals from above.  Soon it was lunchtime and we drove back to the whale watching place for lunch.  Luckily the tours for the afternoon were on though with a strong sea sickness warning due to 3 metre waves!!! On hearing this me and Sheila immediately took our sea sickness tablets and prayed to God ;-)  We got a bus to the boat and took our positions at the back of the boat as this was supposed to be the best place to be if you were prone to sea sickness.  It was the worst sea sickness I (Aimee) had ever had how I wasn't sick I will never know!!!  You couldn't even see the horizon the motion was so bad apparently some were sick luckily I didn't hear or smell them or that would have been me gone.  Despite that we got some great whale viewing in, we saw 3 whales and saw them dive six times splashing their tails down into the sea it was amazing, they were so close though I did watch the last couple from inside.  Finally after what seemed like ages we got back onto dry land and returned to the camp site for a well earned cup of tea followed by fish and chips for dinner, after we decided that it was a bad idea to send Peter out for take away as it would leave us without a van!!

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