We were very pleasantly surprised by Kaikoura as neither of us really knew what to expect of it. As we drove in it was a lovely sight to see a mixture of turquoise sea, snowy mountains and big forest trees... Not three things you would normally put together!
It was a very sunny evening in Kaikoura so after setting up camp we soaked up the views with a beer on the seafront. By default we had to go to a slightly more expensive campsite. We weren't too upset though as we took advantage of their games room and log hot tub that evening.
The next morning we had booked on to a whale watching trip. We have wanted to do this for ages!! It meant getting up at 6am but we got to see a cool sunrise which we haven't seen in a while and the trip was well worth it!! Sperm whales are the most popular in the Kaikoura area however it was a very playful humpback whale that we came across. Samuel was the first to spot it so the captain drove up to it and switched the engine off. The huge beautiful creature swam around us in the calm waters for about 45mins. The humpback even did a bit of showing off with a few tail slaps!
We would have been happy with just that magical moment but the trip was topped off when a huge pod of dusky dolphins came to play with us.
We really liked Kaikoura and wanted to stay another night or so but the weather had turned to poop so we hit the road again that afternoon.
En route to Blenheim we stopped off at Ohau stream. This has been on our bucket list since we saw David Attemborough's New Zealand program. There is a waterfall there where seal mummas take their pups! Unfortunately there weren't hundreds of them there like there are at certain points of the year but there were two very cute pups who didn't seem to mind posing for the camera!