Month: April 2008

Kaikoura is famous for its marine wildlife, especially the resident whales, so our plan was to go on a whale watching boat trip. The wind had other ideas, and with our tour cancelled due to bad weather we vowed to return (and find Mum a whale watch near the UK somewhere), then continued up the coast.
Not far along we passed Nins Bin, promising freshly cooked crayfish, and green lipped mussels, New Zealand delicacies. The crayfish is like a small lobster, and the cook (Nin?) had helpfully sliced the beast down the middle, revealing the egg sacks. The mussels were huge, three times the size of others I’d eaten, but they went in the mouth whole! Now I’m not one for shellfish, but Mum and I had a good crack whilst Caroline nibbled and prodded, and Cat and Ian stayed at a safe distance. Here’s hoping I avoid any food poisoning!

With the day starting off watching a huge pod of dolphins swim past the campsite, jumping, back flipping and generally having fun, you could tell it was going to be a cracker. With our exceptionally tight full on wet suits squeezed on (including hoods!), we stepped into the ice cold ocean, contemplated running out again, and caught the boat out to the seal colony, passing by the dusky dolphins that swam and jumped around the boat, what a bonus! Sliding into the water, and taking a few minutes to get used to the cold water trickling into to the wet suit, we swam to the rocks and came face to face with three seals darting around the water. They’d swim up to our faces, staring us out with mouths open as if ready to bite before darting off in another direction, they also did this amongst themselves, and aparently the game is to see who runs away first – the seals always won in our case! With most of the group too cold or too sea sick to carry on, I was just about to get out when the seals picked up the pace and also started doing jumps, a nice farewell!
Mum and I had fun hurtling down a flying fox at the campsite that night, it was great until the tree at the end got close and you just weren’t sure if you’d stop this time. Well if the other kids can do it, so can we, and I did have parental supervison!