From the ferry we decide to head down the East coast to Kaikoura.  Another small town, but with very big residents - sperm whales!!!

We make the most part of the journey by day, taking in the new found scenery of the South Island, but arrive at night and check in at the first camp site we find. 

Our first day is spent exploring the area.  We head up to the peninsular look out where you can see for absolutely miles!!!  On a clear day you can even see the North Island, unfortunately it's not that clear for us.  We drive on down to the seal colony.  An amazing site where the fur seals literally come on land and sunbathe, sleep and generally just laze about!  They pay absolutely no attention to the swarms of people gawping at them, us included ;o)  They are much bigger than I'd expected, and nowhere near as sleek due to the fact that they have fur (hence the name!)  In fact their faces are quite bear-like.  They are beautiful though and happily lay still for our photos!!!  We spend the rest of the afternoon wandering around the many gift shops in town. 

Day 2 we visit the Kaikoura winery.  Whilst only a small site - 3 acres - it's setting is stunning.  We do the tour, and the tasting of course.  Most interesting is the fact that they have an underground cellar.  They built this into the ground and then covered it with the vines.  As no wine is actually stored here they hire the huge space out for functions and also host charity events.  We escape without having to buy any wine - only Pak n Save for us!!

We decide to "pop" into a pub on our way back to town as it's not quite late enough for dinner.......  5hrs and 1 pub quiz later we leave, oh dear oh dear......

Needless to say the next day was a relaxing one - and it started with a very late breakfast!  Having dragged ourselves back into the land of the living we headed back up to the peninsular to do the cliff top walks.  These are pretty much what they sound like and provide little boards of information as you go. 

Our final day is the big one, the reason we came - the whale watch.  Unfortunately for us the boat leaves at 7.15, so it's an early start, however we're eager to get out there as they have a very high rate of sitings.  Once we're all gathered at the office they bundle us onto a bus to take us to the boat.  It's actually a catamaran and we're told that we're to stay inside until the captain stops - they're very safety conscious here!  The main reason the area is so popular with the sperm whale is the huge drop in depth - from 100m to 3km - around the continental shelf.  The sperm whale can dive for up to 2hrs so this is perfect feeding grounds for them.  Sure enough after a mere 15mins we've stopped to view Little Nick - who happens to be 16m long!!!!!!  We dash, well Rich dashes and I follow on, upstairs and simply stare at the huge mass to our left.  It kind of looks like a submarine and is only just shorter than the boat we're on.  Apparently between dives they stay on the surface for around 15mins to get rid of the carbon dioxide in their system before diving again.  Sure enough with one final blow he dives.  It's an amazing sight that I simply cannot put into words. 

We head downstairs and move to another site.  This time our whale is cruising around on the surface, apparently sleeping!!!!  We look on with yet more amazement as this one is in fact larger than our boat at a whopping 18m!!!  The captain lets us watch him while we wait for the other to resurface.  When he does we head back round and have a complete re-run - this is truly fantastic. 

As a final treat the captain takes us in search of yet more treats - the Hector Dolphin.  This is the smallest and rarest of the dolphins, at just under a metre in length.  On the way we see petrels and albatrosses circling the waves.  After searching for what seems a needle in a haystack one of the crew spots 3 dolphins.  Back to the top deck just in time to see them playfully leaping through the sea.  They swim around us for a while and then lose interest and disappear.

We head back to the bay with huge smiles on our faces and a million photos on our cameras!