After leaving Abel Tasman we drove to the east coast to Kaikoura. Basically this is THE place to come whale watching. As we drove down the coast I was very pleased to see lots more seals laid on the rocks. The sea also continued to be a lovely green colour. While driving Craig had a minor scare as he got stung by a wasp. However my medical kit came to the rescue and plucked the sting from his chest! (Dont panic Craigs mum & dad he had no reaction to the bite.) We arrived into the small seaside town mid afternoon and went for a drive along the peninsula to the seal colony. No we not sick of seeing seals on the trip yet, well Im not! As we were seal spotting we were extremley lucky to see 2 Orca(killer) whales swim past, which made us very happy as we didnt get to see any in Vancouver. We also got to see a bizarre sight, a seal come to shore for bed, it plodded up the beach and across the grass right in front of us, before it went into a bush for a sleep. The next morning we went on our whale watching boat trip. We can report no black eyes or sea sickness, unlike some of the unlucky passengers who made full use of their sick bags. The boat was very flash, big leather seats, gps screens to plot our location and a sonar phone to help find the whales. We soon left the green sea water as we headed further out, the depth reader plunged to nearly 2Km, as we sailed over a huge canyon. It didnt take long till we located our first sperm whale, yippee, finally we got to see some whales in their natural habitat. It was amazing to see them floating on the surface, blowing the water up in the air. They were about 18m long, as big as our boat. They come to the surface for 10-15mins before diving back down for 45 mins, so you have to be quick finding them. We were very lucky and got to see 4 whales in total, one of which was asleep with its head bobbing out of the water. On the way back we also got to see another spectacular sight, a pod of about 50 dusky dolphins. They were swimming all round the boat, and kept jumping out of the water, it was lovely to see them up close in the wild and being so playful. Another fantastic day to add to the collection.