So how about all those photos of birds??? Time to fill you in on the last few days, including our amazing adventures in Kaikoura...

So we waved goodbye to the West Coast and headed inland, passing a garage advertising the price of fuel as: 91 $arm; 98 $leg, which caused a little smile, and brought to mind again that New Zealand isn't quite as cheap as we expected. This was confirmed in a recent TV programme we caught at Franz (one of those terrible consumer type things, but we had a TV in our room, first we've seen for some months….) which was going on about how much food prices had risen in NZ over the last year, i.e. since we'd been here, which was quite cheery. Anyway, this time we were crossing over the Southern Alps to the east coast via the Lewis Pass, which wasn't particularly steep like Arthur's Pass, or dramatic like the Haast Pass, but rather a lovely gentle road, winding through beautiful beech forest for most of the way. We really enjoyed the drive, stopping as usual for a cookie and flask of tea! As it was quite a trek, we decided to stop for a night at Hanmer Springs Top 10, which was a really good move. We chose not to visit the famous thermal springs, as they were a bit pricey, but instead took a walk in the forest that backed onto the holiday park. And while it was a planted and managed forest, unlike the wild untamed rainforest of the West Coast, it was incredibly soothing for us as it was planted with European trees and was rather like walking through an English forest in the early autumn, familiar trees and lots of fly agaric fungi. After a couple of hours wandering about the forest, a spacious cabin with a sofa to lounge on in the evening, and then a lovely comfortable night's sleep, we felt quite recharged the following day.

And then we arrived at Kaikoura, a place we've both dreamed of throughout our time here in New Zealand, feeling a pull for the amazing wildlife you get here and imaging a sort of wild, spiritual place. When we first hit the Kaikoura coast, we got really excited, a place where the mountains meet the Pacific Ocean along a rocky shoreline with sea spray lying at the base of the mountains - quite magical. But our initial feelings as we arrived in Kaikoura were actually of overwhelming disappointment. We stayed at the Top 10 again, the cheapest place we could find in town as we have our discount card, but still really expensive compared to other Top 10s (except Franz), and you really didn't get much for your dollars - our room was a tiny box, with the most uncomfortable beds we've slept in for some time and the showers were timed so you got 6 minutes of hot water with a jet of cold water after 5 so you know you have a minute left - stingy gits, I'd love to see the owners shower in that! And everything is geared up to take your money so this wonderful spiritual, natural phenomenon that happens here is now kind of like a mini Las Vegas (obviously on a much smaller scale,) but it just didn't seem right somehow. For those of you who don't know Kaikoura, there is a deep canyon in the Pacific Ocean, a kilometre offshore, imaginatively called the Kaikoura Canyon, which draws in huge and varied sea mammals - sperm whales live here all year around and other whales migrate through at different times of the year. The Whale Watch that we have been dreaming of all year, the only wildlife in New Zealand we have yet to see, was $140, and we booked a trip for the following morning as we've been planning it for so long neither of us wanted to change our minds, but it hurt a bit - that's a lot of cleaning toilets!!! And then we felt kind of flat.

We were cheered a little later that afternoon by a walk along the Kaikoura Peninsula, where we found a lovely spot to sit on top of the cliffs and just watch the ocean, imaging what was out there. And back in the car park, as we were watching the extremely tame NZ fur seals that laze around, blatantly showing off to the adoring public, we met Rob, a true Kiwi character. So how would I describe Rob, well stoned would be polite, completely twatted a little more realistic, but what a top bloke. For many years he strapped himself onto paying customers and jumped out of planes with them, then when he felt he was getting a little old for this, he picked up his camera and now he moves around New Zealand, barefoot, living like a gypsy, taking photos of the country and the amazing wildlife that lives here. He knows most people in NZ I think, so doesn't pay for whale watch, or dolphin encounter, and does these trips time after time, taking memory card after memory card of amazing photos, which he hopes to eventually publish - he is currently compiling a book on Kaikoura. He is a genuine character, his pictures are bloody amazing and he brought a smile to our faces.

So the following morning we awoke with excitement (and sore hips from the wooden base of our beds!) and set off to Whale Watch, which incidentally is on a road called Whaleway, next to the railway line! We were cheered to see that sea conditions for this trip were described as 'ideal', according to the employees of Whale Watch, the sort of day that only happens a handful of times per year. But somebody forgot to tell the whales it was a perfect day and unfortunately they all b*****ed off out of range! We were about the 3rd or 4th trip that day, and each boat had searched in a different part of the canyon in an attempt to locate the whales, using methods of searching that are of no detrimental affect to the whales or their environment, and I have to say that the crew really did try their hardest, but we had no luck at all, and by the time we had returned to harbour they had cancelled the rest of the day's trips. But you know, it didn't turn out so badly for us. When a trip is unsuccessful, they refund 80% of your ticket, so by the end of the trip we found ourselves actually hoping that we didn't find any whales as we didn't want to spend that amount of money just to see a solitary fin. This obviously just wasn't the time for us to see these wonderful creatures, and perhaps when we do eventually track them down, we may do so in a more intimate, less touristy place. Instead we had a 3-hour trip along the coastline of Kaikoura, in a boat reminiscent of our old friend the Sea Star from Tilos (though you had to be seated when the boat was in motion and it didn't belch out black smoke) and with our refund we wandered down the road to book another trip. But this time we didn't fall into the tourist trap of whales and dolphins which is all most people come here to see, but we booked onto the Albatross Encounter, a small boat which takes out only 9 people to see the albatross, mollymawks, gannets, petrels and other amazing seabirds that you get along this coast. It was actually made for us, with only 2 spaces left for the following morning and we were actually more excited than we were when we booked to see the whales.

Kaikoura then grew on us a little more as I found a book that I've been hunting down for ages in a second-hand bookshop (I've moved on from my NZ author obsession to looking for novels based in SE Asia) and then we took blue cod and chips to the beach with a bottle of Nelson savvy that somebody had kindly left in the fridge at Wanaka, and ate them while looking out to sea, just in case we saw a whale leap out of the water (sorry, no luck, but wouldn't that have made a great story!) The evening was rounded off after we were chased from the beach when it became impossible to see (it's definitely getting dark earlier now) and we took the remainder of our chips back to the doorstop of our wee box and found yet another Kiwi character next door to us - a recovering alcoholic with a heart of gold who was motor biking around NZ with a young friend of his, an undertaker, who he had taken in years previously after seeing this guy through a difficult childhood. His stories were just fabulous - how he met his wife after thinking she was originally a man (bet she loves that one!), and his younger days, when I get the impression he was a bit of a devil, but always with a good heart. He could definitely write an interesting biography!

The following morning we packed up our Shads, parked her in town and went off for the best trip we've done here - the Albatross Encounter. We were collected by our driver/captain/guide/general all-round hero, Gary, and taken to our wee boat and we sped off to sea, wind in our hair, none of this rubbish about sitting inside while the boat was in motion, pausing briefly when Gary spied a Blue Penguin fishing, until our first stop, when we were quickly joined by the largest seabird in the world, the albatross. Gary was actually a little disappointed that the Wandering Albatross arrived first as this was the largest of all, but she didn't half make an impression, this giant bird swooping in towards a cage attached to the rear of the boat filled with chicken livers, wings outstretched, dwarfing the pretty Cape Pigeons, a type of petrel, that arrived first. And the others weren't far behind; we were quickly joined by several different varieties of albatross, including the Northern Royal (those we saw nesting at Tairoa Head on the Otago Peninsula) and the smaller Mollymawks, including the beautiful and striking Black-browed and Southern Buller's which I absolutely adored as their eye marking were so spectacular. But there was something about the Wandering Albatross that was really special - they have such gentle, wise faces and beautiful lacing down their necks that gets whiter as they get older. And we just couldn't believe how close they were to us - you could literally have reached out of the boat and stroked them if you didn't mind losing a finger or two! Several Giant Petrels, who stormed in like Lords of Darkness and stared at you with cold hard eyes, also joined us and these weren't birds you wanted to stroke - they looked you straight in the eye, as though they were trying to work out how best to eat you - I felt like I was looking at something prehistoric. Gary wasn't particularly fond of these birds either as they are so aggressive - he had recently watched one drown a Gannet for its lunch and despite attempts to push it away with his boat, this determined creature had hung on grimly to its lunch. But as for Gary, well he was absolutely amazing - what he didn't know about these magnificent seabirds (and other marine life of Kaikoura for that matter) just isn't worth knowing, he could tell the age and sex of a bird at a quick glance, but he wasn't at all overbearing, he simply stood back, let people enjoy the sight and shared his knowledge when people asked questions, mainly Su & I. He also brought out a flask of hot chocolate and some ginger cookies, which always goes down well with us!

After a while we moved onto another spot, which he often does as the moving boat attracts other birds, in fact the albatross know this boat so well that on the occasion it is used for the Dolphin Encounter, run by the same people, they are pursued relentlessly by various albatross! But it also meant that we got the opportunity of watching these birds take off, a sort of lumbering run along the water to build up momentum, fly which is utterly beautiful and graceful, and then land again, which is distinctly inelegant but rather amusing nonetheless! And in addition to watching these birds move and feed, we also had a rather interesting insight into how they interact with each other, which was generally to stretch out their wings to make them look as large as possible while moving in to the food, and out of the bigger birds it was the Wandering Albatross and the Giant Petrels who ruled the roost, with a fair amount of fighting amongst themselves, while the smaller albatross and mollymawks hung back patiently and the smaller birds moved around quite without fear picking at the scraps. There was one Wandering Albatross who was particularly aggressive, and Gary instantly recognised her as a bird who was feeding a chick, from her red beak and aggressive manner - apparently they are so full of hormones while they are feeding that they are almost in pain. Her chick will be over 600 miles away, being looked after by the male, and when she returns to feed and take over the guardianship of the little one, the parents will dance both in greeting and as a method of recognition.

Once we had spent some time at the second stop, Gary bravely and quite carefully released the remaining chicken livers into the water, which initiated a final frenzy of feeding, and we left these wonderful birds behind. But the trip wasn't over just yet! Then we went around to two large rocks just offshore that were home to a colony of Spotted Shags, approximately 1000 birds, who shared their home with a colony of NZ Fur Seals, still one of my favourite creatures here. And we had such a wonderful (though incredibly smelly) view as Gary took the boat as close to the rocks as possible so we could watch the tiny 6-week old pups playing in the rock pools, watched over by a couple of adults. Oh, they were adorable, with a film over their eyes making them look a little like aliens! And just when we thought the day couldn't get any better we chanced upon a pod of 20 or so Dusky Dolphins as we were returning to the harbour, Gary stopped the boat and a hush descended over all of us while these magical creatures swum around and under our boat, putting on a wonderful and very intimate display for us. It was such a special trip, as you can probably tell from the amount of photos that I've added to the blog (and you should have seen what I left off….) and it really was a day that we will never forget. And we shall visit our dear friend Gary when he comes to the Rutland Bird Fair in the UK next August to promote this fantastic trip. Bloody marvellous.

After the trip we moved onto Blenheim for the night, via Nin's Bin, a little caravan some 20kms above Kaikoura which sells crayfish for a fraction of the price you would pay in a restaurant (they are a specialty in Kaikoura) As we still had change from our Whale Watch we treated ourselves to one, still warm from the pot, which had been swimming away merrily only 90 minutes beforehand (sorry fella) and then rejoiced upon arrival at the Blenheim Top 10 to find made up beds, proper sheets n' all, free use of the spa as Top 10 members, and lovely hot showers that we could use for as long as we liked (oh, for less money too). And so to round off our perfect day we had a wonderful spa, lovely long, hot shower and then settled down to crayfish for our dinner that was utterly divine. And then we slept like content little logs in our lovely clean, warm sheets.

And what since then? Well, we returned to our favourite area of the country to say hello to some old friends and see the Travel Doctor at Nelson who is the nicest doctor I've ever met in my life. We decided to stay in Motueka as we didn't want to spoil our lovely memories of Mapua with little old men playing tennis naked (February & March are 'clothes-optional' months at Mapua!) and we had a few days to try and relax a little and get ourselves together again. As much as we have loved the last couple of weeks since leaving work, it does get tiring moving around and doing lots of different things so it was nice to stop and see some familiar faces - we caught up with Jamie, Susie, Olly and Grace at Rabbit Island, before Jamie & Susie took us for a beer at Mapua Harbour, then popped in for a chat with Trudy at Dean's Nursery to exchange news from the last few months, and back to Ann & Bob at Mapua for a little chat, no actually a gloat about the football, I know we still trail Man U but we had such a superb victory at Old Trafford I couldn't leave without calling in! And we also exchanged gifts, leaving our wellys & gardening gloves for future WWOOFers and leaving with a tea box full of beautiful fresh figs (the taste of which took us both straight back to Greece). And now we've moved over to Picton where we were looking forward to a couple of days walking around the Marlborough Sounds before catching the ferry back to the North Island. Sadly some things don't turn out quite as planned and today has been rather cold and rainy so we've had a day of sorting a few more bits and advertising Shadowfax for sale. Tomorrow the weather is supposed to be better so we're planning a walk along the Queen Charlotte Sound, then we're booked on the ferry to Wellington on Friday lunchtime, and we will be waving goodbye to the South Island. And then in less than a month's time we will be boarding a flight to Bangkok! Doesn't time fly!

All for now. Lots of love, Jo & Su, xxx