Emma at I-Site, and several others along the way looked at me funny when I said I wanted to go to Christchurch. They all said ‘why?’
My only answer was that is what the internet told me to do.
Emma corrected my thinking and I am ever so glad she did.
She suggested Kaikoura as a stop I might enjoy, then suggested the whale watching tour.
Of course I was on board with that, and the bus from Picton to Christchurch goes through Kaikoura, so it was easy to jump off for a night and wander around.
From that point until I arrived in town, the only thing I knew about the place was I for the life of me could not get the spelling right and it had a lot of vowels in the name. Vowels I continue to put in the wrong order, so forgive me if there are random spellings of “the K place.”
But as with everything, I learn. Kaikoura is a beach town of about 3,000 permanent residents. It was first inhabited by the Ngai Tahu iwi (tribe) of Maori on or before 1670. European settlers showed up in the 1840’s and by the 1850’s the Europeans started sheep farming in the area.
Robert Fyffe and his family are considered the first European settlers and Mount Fyffe is named in their honor… by the Europeans. It was probably called something else before that.
Kaikoura was named one of the ‘most beautiful small towns in the world’ in 2023, which has helped the town tourism businesses considerably since in 2016, the roads to and from the town were heavily damaged by an earthquake. The bay and surrounding region were uplifted about 2 meters by the quake, so landslides from the mountains galore. Our bus driver said it took almost 5 years to restore the roads and ‘hold back’ the mountains to keep them safe.
Kaikōura is known for its biodiversity, with a wide variety of marine mammals in the area. Hence tourists flocking to the area and me going on a whale watch.
The boat was really fast. They tell you that repeatedly while making the way out of the harbor area and emphasizing everyone must be seated while the boat is moving. I believe everyone on the boat was rolling their eyes, and thinking ‘whatever’ during the safety speech, but we all obediently sat. They also repeatedly said in the waiting area before going to the boat that if you are prone to motion sickness, the sea is calm today, but we sell Dramamine and you should take it. They followed that statement up on the boat with saying someone would get sick. Someone gets sick on every trip. Use the bags provided in the seat back in front of you. Sit toward the center back if you have any inkling you might have an issue. Back center is the most stable part of the boat.
I have been on boats. I know boats. Not like coastal dwellers know boats, but I thought this was a bit extreme.
He was not wrong. I did not get sick, but I was a little queasy. They make everyone sit down until they stop because after we got out of the ‘no wake’ zone, I am not sure it is possible for anyone to stand up the way we were moving and getting tossed around.
I do not know if anyone got sick. I sat in the front row, but several did stay seated after we stopped, so, I’m guessing at least some were not feeling well.
But we did eventually stop. We rushed to the place where they had a feeling a whale would surface, and… they were right.
Never doubted. It is their job, after all. Kind of pointless if they can’t find the whales to be whale watching tours.
The whales in the area they anticipate seeing are sperm whales. The sperm whale deep dives for about 45 minutes to an hour, then must surface to breath for 10 to 15 minutes before diving again. The boat has some kind of sonar or something that can track things in the area, and with that and experience, they had a good idea this whale would come up for air.
When the boat stopped, everyone ran to the doors and yes, there was a whale. I must admit I was disappointed at first because it was not jumping out of the water; I could not really see anything, and honestly, what I could see appeared to be an enormous… male part just laying there mostly under water. I suppose it was a sperm whale, so that fits.
But I was not on the top deck, so they probably got a better view of the whale floating around.
I was however, but luck or divine intervention, in a great place for the dive.
I had no idea what to expect from a whale dive because I did not research any of this before getting on the boat. I had no idea how to photograph a whale dive, no idea what to look for… you get the idea. Extreme ignorance. I know you are shocked.
Yet there I was standing by the rail, taking pictures of the giant penis, when the captain announced it was about to dive. Everyone got so excited, so I got excited about what I did not know. It seemed to me the whale diving under the water would be a lot harder to see, but here we are.
I learned quickly the dive produced the tail flip that is so famous in pictures. And I was standing dead center for the grand presentation of the whale butt.
I was just mooned by a giant sperm whale. How wonderfully exciting.
The captain said sit down quickly! We may be able to catch another one!
Everyone ran back to their seats and we were once again off.
We just missed the next one, and since he wouldn’t be back to the surface for another hour, there was no point in waiting around. Sad now.
Either I have been gone way too long, or I am just not right in the head to get so excited, then depressed about sperm… whales.
We traveled slower now, so we could stand and even stand outside of the protected space of the inner cabin. We were warned, however, that a lot of the outside space was a splash zone. Again, this crew really knows their stuff.
We caught glimpse of fur seals. Or a fur seal who had little interest in us or being photographed.
Then we received word of a giant albatross feeding nearby. Honestly, I was in this now. Yes! Lets go see a giant bird pull the guts out of a fish!
I have more pictures of this fish eating bird than I do of the penis whale. I will spare you most of them.
Apparently we had given up on dolphins, and honestly this bird wasn’t doing much and I was wasting my battery taking too many pictures as I waited for it to be interesting when we moved away and found those elusive dolphins.
These, I am told are Dusky dolphins. They are just as fast and illusive as the other dolphins I have seen, and yes, my photos reflect that statement. But, there were also a lot of them and that increased my odds of getting something.
I cannot control light, nor the rocking of the boat, or where or what the dolphins will do next, but just as I was getting the hang of things, we pulled away and headed back to dock.
Sad now. And it was the last tour of the day, so I could not jump on the next one. And I had a bus ticket out the next morning. And… I would come back here. That was a neat thought to end the day.
