On the bus there was only the driver and one other passenger when we headed off. The jolly bus driver knew about our reservation and told us to take seat whereever we wanted.
On the way to Blenheim, where the drivers were going to change we picked up a couple of more passengers.
Our new driver was more a extremely quick speaking tour guide with strong accent than a normal bus driver. Every couple of minutes he switched on his microphone and announced scenic things in the landscape or historic places along the road. Always with some interesting bit of information as far as we could understand what he was saying. He did all this, without a single "Aehhhmm" or "Oehhhh" while perfectly driving the big bus over the curvy roads at a set speed of 94 km/h (set by the cruise control) and shifting through the manual 7 speed electronic gear box. - we could see all this from our first row seats.
He didn't need to tell us that we were driving along a wonderful coastal road.
When we arrived in Kaikoura (which means "eating Crayfish") we were very hungry alread but still had to bring our bags to the Motel first.
Here again the man at AA back in Auckland (who booked all these places for us) had done a great job as the walk was again less than a kilometre.
We went straight back to the town centre where we had lunch at the little cafe that the driver had suggested, but were a bit disappointed.
Anyway, we still had two hours to kill until we could do what you do here in Kaikoura: Whale Watching!
The reason the whales are gathering here is a deep underwater canyon just off the coast.
So we took a walk along the stony beach towards the Whaleway Station. An old railway station building that has been converted into a headquarters of the Whalewatching industry here in Kaikoura.
It was still some time left, which we killed with another coffee.
Then the film about the whales would be starting soon. That's what we thought, but it turned out to be an extremely boring safety briefing video.
After this we were sent onto a bus and driven across the peninsula (about the size of Howth) to the southside from where we would take one of the twin 750hp Scania catamaran boats to see the whales.
We need that power, we were told as the whales surface only for about a minute before they disappear and we would have to get there very quickly if they are spotted at the horizon.
It felt a bit crazy now to be riding around a couple of 1500 hp boats (not when we were there but on busy days there are up to 6 boats out at the same time) and a few helicopters to get a glimpse of 10% of some big fish (I know they are not fish) in the water.
Now we used echolocation to see if a whale was around and after a few minutes indeed we located one.
A few minutes later we saw a bit of a bump at the horizon and headed towards it. We didn't quite get there to see him up close before the spearm whale (Pottwal) waved goodbye with his big fluke and was gone.
These whales, once gone were not going to come back up for another hour or hour and a half. Luckily it turned out that this was not the whale we located and that one was still around.
Very soon we saw it up close enough to quickly drive over and get close up. He stayed up more than 3 minutes, which is very unusual.
For this day I had brought my DSLR camera and the new 250 mm zoom lens but the pictures did not quite work out as I hoped yet. Still needed to play around a bit and with the next whale I shot a great picture of the fin just about to dive into the water.
I hope this reignited my enthusiasm for photography again, so that Yuni and go out to explore the surroundings of Blackrock together with our cameras.
Now I was happy enough with my photos and just enjoyed the rest of the boat ride with "my own eyes".
We even saw one more whale in the distance and plenty of dolphins and albatrosses.
For the fact that there are usually only 1 - 2 whale spottings per trip we were really lucky, or they intentionally lower the expectations before the trip so that you are even more amazed... who knows.
Back on solid ground we picked up a big ice cream on the way back to the Motel.
After a short (but possibly too long) rest we went back out into town to get some food.
It was just past 9 but the first two restaurants we tried already didn't serve any food, so we took our last chance at a Thai place.
I didn't think my parents would very much enjoy the exotic food but they really did. So we have tried indian and Thai now and both of them they really enjoyed.
To round off the evening we went next door to a little bar to have one more beer on which I was struggling as I was so stuffed from all the food.
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