So we left Christchurch this morning to make our way north along the east coast of the South Island. We also hit the only motorway on the South Island which lasts all of about 10 minutes!
The scenery is nice but it's a lot more distant hills and mountains, then when we hit the Coastal road, that was really nice.

We arrived in Kaikoura and drove out to see loads of seals. One of them was fairly active too. I was walking around and only just noticed them laid down, they were everywhere.

We checked in to the Fish Tank Lodge and got a room with Craig, then went straight out for our Whale Watching trip. There was a warning at the tour centre to say the sea was rough and we'd been told by a few people that a lot of people get really seasick on the trip, so we bought some prevention tablets. A bus took us 5 minutes away to the harbour and we jumped on the catamaran. The sea was really really rough! We constantly had that roller-coaster ride feeling in our stomachs.

We found a Sperm Whale really early on, which was a bonus. As soon as the boat was close enough, we were allowed to dash upstairs to the deck to see the whale. They're massive although it's hard to appreciate their size as you can only see part of their body popping out the water. They don't swim along either, they just stay in one position. We stood watching for a short while before the whale had caught enough air and started it's dive down into the ocean, with it's huge tail flapping in the air. There's only a short 10 minute window to catch them on the surface before they dive back down.
We saw 3 whales in total which is fantastic as usually on the trip they see one, maybe two. One of them we saw was playing around with seaweed and bobbing it's head out the water which is apparently unusual to see.

By this time, loads of people had been throwing up, and I felt a bit queasy too. The sea was really rough though, and the boat was lifting up and slamming down!

A little surprise that we didn't know about was seeing Dusty Dolphins! And there were hundreds of them. They're quite small dolphins and are really playful. They were jumping out of the sea and doing backflips, spinning and even just comically jumping in and out of the water really quickly and slapping their tales on the water. They were so funny to watch and there were so many doing tricks.
The trip was fantastic and definitely worth the $137 (£70) each.

We're all so tired so didn't do a great deal in the evening other than have an intense round of Connect 4, then an early night as we want to do a bit of a hike tomorrow.