Sheila writes:

Kaikoura on the east coast is in a wonderful setting - on a peninsula backed by snow covered mountains up to 2000m high. It's famous for being the whale-watching capital of New Zealand - so of couse we had to do a whale watching trip. Offshore immediately south of the peninsula, the continental shelf is cut into by the really deep (>1600m deep) Kaikoura Trench which causes oceanic upwellings in which fish and shellfish flourish and attract whales, sharks and dolphins.

On our tour we saw two sperm whales (the fourth biggest whale species on the planet) and a large (>200) pod of dusky dolphins. It was amazing to see the males doing astonishing aerial acrobatics (tail flips and somersaults and with pike and tuck positions...!!) - aparently to impress females.... Sadly we didn't really have anything like enough time at sea and we both felt a bit short changed by the experience.