"Whales and dolphins and seals, OH MY"

The day began with a beautiful sunrise over the Seaward Kaikoura Range. My photos do not do it justice.

The car was frosted over. There was no scraper to hand so Amy scrounged a scrap of wood from the firewood pile and used that instead. It worked. In fact, it's still in the car, just in case.

First we drove into Kaikoura proper and took a stroll on the beach. We claimed part of it as New Grimsby for which I think Claire might have the photos.

And then the real excitement. Whale watching. Sea sickness tablets taken (just), wrapped up in many layers, we set out on the good ship Aoraki. We obviously wanted to see a whale, but didn't expect too much.

We saw a whale. A massive damn Sperm Whale, just lying there on the surface, bobbing in the waves. Many pictures were taken.

And then another one appeared. There. In the distance.

And then another and I couldn't work out where to look so I just videoed it.

And then they all dived, but I missed it because I was on the wrong bit of the boat.

So we motored away and a few minutes later we saw yet another whale. We are now up to 4 BLOODY WHALES. His name, apparently, is Manu and you can tell by the shape of his tail. And this time I managed to catch it as it dived. Just.

Pootled along some more and yup, just bobbing about, is another whale. Which I also managed to catch diving. WOO!

And then, just to top it all off, we came across an enormous pod of dusky dolphins which were quite happy to show off for us, leaping about and splashing and swimming in the bow wave. Didn't get many reasonable photos, but hey, the moment is what matters.

So, yeah, 5 whales. Apparently seeing 3 on the surface together is pretty much unheard of so imagine our glee.

We then tried out Kaikoura's fish and chips. It's good, but not as good as Grimsby. If we move here, we'll have to do something about that. We have also developed a taste for L&P which is sort of like lemonade and generally delicious. Mmmm.

Day ended with a fairly long drive to Motueka. I think I rode the endorphin high from whale-watching most of the way. Best day yet.

"I would appreciate a manky sock"

The day started badly. The ladder of the bunk bed slipped and I pretty much fell out of bed. I've got a bump on my chin to prove it. Oops.

Anyways, once we actually got going it was fine. The sun was overly bright, but the views were nice even if the air was freezing. We grabbed a couple of bad pictures of the pretty side of Dunedin train station.

We had a quick stop at Shag Point, because it sounded funny and it had a lookout. Turned out to be pretty cool because there were fur seals basking on the rocks. I especially liked this poser.

The first proper stop was at Moeraki Boulders. These things are amazing - almost perfectly spherical and no one really knows why. Claire and Amy decided we need pictures of them standing on the boulders so took their socks and shoes off, not thinking that we didn't have a towel to hand. This resulted in them drying their feet off on one of Claire's old socks. Nice. I just giggled and took photos.

We had breakfast in the cafe at the top of the cliff. Very nice and filling, even if the tea went cold really quick. Om nom nom. Egg and bacon pie. Mmmm.

And then there was driving. And driving. And more driving. We finally stopped for a proper break (a while after switching drivers) in a layby to eat yesterday's lamb and mint pies from Arrowtown. They were delicious. Om nom nom again. No need for tea now.

Then there was a weird song about New Zealand on the radio. I will find a link to it when I have chance.

At last, and not as late as we'd expected, we arrived in Kaikoura. Parents will be glad to know that we did some laundry. Hurray for clean clothes. Tomorrow, WHALES.

"Is them sheep?"

Hurray! The storm seems to have buggered off. We started today with a nice drive west from Queenstown to Twelve Mile Delta. I prattled about Lord of the Rings filming locations while Claire made plans to buy a house at Wilson's Bay. This is going to become a common theme.

The lake was beautiful, with nice clear views over to the mountains. Look:

That little hill on the left there in the last photo - that there is Amon Hen. Well, the filming location for Amon Hen. Just about. I geeked. A lot. And that one in the second one down below, that one turns up when Sam sees the oliphaunts.

Then we headed back to Queenstown and went out through the back and into the hills to find Arrowtown, which is an old gold-mining settlement.

It's very pretty but obviously geared towards tourists. We didn't care - the sun had come out, there was an amazing sweet shop and the bakery did really nice smelling pies. So we bought some fudge, had a stroll around the remains of the Chinese settlement and bought some pies to go. We're so cool.

 

 

Then came the drive to Dunedin. First stop came at Cromwell, which is pretty and we want to live there too. We're going to need a lot of holiday homes. Another stupid selfie of the day.

I liked the dam at Roxburgh because it just appealed to the geek within.

Dunedin itself is nice enough but there isn't that much to do. We decided to have tea out and picked a place that does stonegrill. Basically, choose your meat and some sides and it comes to you raw on a very hot stone so you can cook it how you want. We had lamb, because we had to try New Zealand lamb. It was delicious and I don't normally like lamb. Yum. Oh yeah, pictures of raw meat.

And then a fairly early night because tomorrow we get to have the uber-long drive up to Kaikoura. By which I mean 7 hours. Ack.