Yesterday was a very sad day - Phil is now well on his way back to Birmingham and I am all too aware of the big empty space next to me! I hear its snowing in Birmingham so he'll get quite the shock getting off the plane. We had to check out of the hotel at 10am, but Phil's flight wasn't until 5pm so we spent some time in a nice café in Christchurch before catching the shuttle to the airport. Before I knew it, I was on a shuttle back towards the city, feeling like I'd left a big part of me behind.

So the next phase of my adventure has begun. I stayed at Backpackers @ Sonoda last night, which is basically just halls of residence for the University of Canterbury. I had a good run a couple of times around the campus in the evening - it seems like a nice uni although I think it too must have been affected by the earthquake. There are quite a few temporary buildings labelled as lecture theatres and offices. It's strange to think that's this is their long summer holiday and freshers will be arriving in the next few weeks.

I was picked up at 7am this morning by the Kiwi Experience bus and my driver guide, Gary - an absolute legend! Gary is a super friendly New Zealander who is clearly passionate about his job. He regularly gave us updates along the way, told funny stories and gave us hints and tips about all the best things to see and do in New Zealand. He also managed to plan and book my whole tour of South Island with me - who says men can't multitask?!

There were only 13 of us on the bus but I was warned that my next bus would be full (there are 53 seats.) We arrived in Kaikoura at midday and checked in at out hostel - The Lazy Shag - which is right opposite the Top 10 campsite Phil and I stayed at only a few days ago. It's so helpful that Kiwi Experience prebook all of your accomodation, they even prebook all of your activities and give you discount - all I have to do us sign up on the bus.

Today I signed up for the whale watching trip at 3.30pm, leaving me time to go and do some of the Peninsula Walkeay beforehand. Phil and I walked to the start of it the other day but it was too late to do the walkway itself and see the seal colony. The walkway gives stunning views of the coastline with the Kaikoura ranges in the background. On the walk back to the hostel, I met a couple of seals just lying by the side of the road - what disgusting creatures! They don't have any manners do they? One of them got a bit aggressive so I moved away swiftly. So glad I didn't opt for the swimming with seals!

When I got to the check in for whale watching, there were big warnings posted up on the screens about sea sickness - not ideal! I paid my fare nonetheless, hoping that I'd put my childhood days of getting sea sick well behind me! We were given a safety talk beforehand and we were all given a seat inside the boat - a bit different to a whole crowd being bundled on to the boat in the Bay of Islands. Only when the boat started moving did I realise why - wow it went fast! Apparently it goes at around 30 knots, I don't know much about boats but that seemed pretty fast for a small boat. It was like being on a roller coaster with water crashing up over the sides.

We were only allowed out on deck whilst they were trying to track a whale and then if they managed to locate one a couple of miles ahead already up on the surface, we'd have to rush back to our seats so they could go at top speed to reach the whale before it dived back down to the bottom for another hour or so. The two whales we managed to track were Giant Sperm Whales - longer than our boat although we could only ever see 1/3-2/3 of their entire length above the water. I think it actually turned out that we tracked the same whale twice - we watched it dive and took the postcard photograph of its huge tail and then caught up with the same one an hour later.

They get so many whales around Kaikoura because they have a huge canyon under the surface, so the water is incredibly deep and the whales can dive more than one kilometre down. We also saw pods of Dusky Dolphins playing around the boat and in it's wake, as well as several huge albatross flying around us.

By the time I got off the boat, I was feeling a pretty awful combination of hunger and sea sickness, yuck! Still, it was a fantastic trip and we were all given a special souvenir booklet full of awesome photos.