Sperm Whales, Seals, and Blue Cod in Kaikoura

Raz and Digs took a fishing charter and came back with a chunky Blue Cod, a couple of Crayfish and some Sea Perch. I went into the ticket office to book some tickets for the next morning's whale watch trip; when I balked at the price,  the woman behind the counter responded by saying that she had 3 children and they never went anywhere, apart from maybe the odd picnic! As I walked out of the building, I noticed groups of Japanese tourists pouring out of the office for the morning's whale show!

That evening we cooked the Crays in the campervan. It was a bit of a challenge to get them in the pot and the larger friskier one - we'll call him, Ronnie -  wasn't subdued easily.

An alarming alarm went off in the middle of the night, and as we were parked up no more than 5 metres from the ocean in the car park of whale watch, we edged out of bed wondering if it could it be a Tsunami warning? We sleepily realised it must be the local fire station calling their men into action and went back to sleep.

There is a huge trench in the bay that goes from 50m one moment to a 1700m underwater cliff face. We got up close to a couple of male sperm whales (the females hang out in the Azores), one resident called Tapuki and another than has been around for 4 months. They were tracked by following their echo locator sounds. When it goes quiet on the sonar, it means they are on their way to the surface. When the whales has dived back under, the Royal Albatrosses gave us something to point at.

A skatepark with a view in Kaikoura

8am Kaikoura: getting ready for fishing.

Raz and his Blue Cod

Out on the Kaikoura Whale Watch - check out the back-lit hair!

Sperm Whales in Kaikoura Bay.