Activity Summary
Friday 6th January - Day 127
Drive to Kaikoura
Ohau Point Stephen seal colony
Hot tub chill
Saturday 7th January - Day 128
Failed dolphin watching tour
Hide away at the campsite
Sunday 8th January - Day 129
Kaikoura seal colony & peninsula walkway
Drive to Christchurch
Summary
Kaikoura
Great for wildlife watching. Dolphins and whales if doing a boat tour, plus tons of seal colonies along the coast for the freebie viewings. Otherwise that’s the extent of things to do in Kaikoura.
Accommodation
Kaikoura - Top10
Number of nights - 2
Price per night per person - £14
Really nice campsite with a massive TV room and separate games room which we used to its absolute fullest given the lack of exciting activity. The kitchen was a bit of a nightmare with the tons of young families knocking around everywhere taking up space but not impossible to manage. It was nice to return to the ease of a grass pitch.
Diary
Neither of us were hungover when waking up, although Luke did have to pop a load of paracetamol at 5am when he woke with his standard post drinking crippling headache. Can’t even blame his old age, he’s just terrible at handling excessive beer the next day.
We were up and out of the airbnb as late as we could and set off to Kaikoura (with a glowing review from our hosts ofc as we are a delight).
The road down to Kaikoura took a dramatic turn in being completely undramatic. The drive was actually hella boring for once. We did pass the Pelorus bridge but the pouring rain had turned the wonderful river swimming point that Nicola loved so much into a murky raging torrent of death so there was no swimming on the cards for us. Past the usual Marlborough haunts we had already frequented, the rest of the roads were more farmland and main roads.
The main excitement we had was the Ohau Point Stephen seal colony which we stopped at simply because there were masses of cars and people chilling on the pavement overlooking the coast. Sure enough there were tons of seals, seagulls and other birds relaxing and in the case of the young pups, playing. So far, based on all the seal watching points we went to over the next few weeks this was by far the best one.
We continued down to Kaikoura, found our Top10 campsite and pitched up. The sunshine had come out in full force so having left Nelson absolutely drenched we had the absolute opposite here. Although sadly this did not hold at all the next day.
At the campsite there was a hot tub for free rental so we spent some of the evening relaxing here (and by relaxing it turned out to be a massive sweat fest to purge the last of the alcohol from our pores / ailing muscles).
The only activity we had planned for Kaikoura was swimming with dolphins which we were both part excited, part terrified. To make the fear factor a whole lot worse, the weather was doing horrible things with an incoming storm that was not expected to be very nice on a boat out in the open sea. Let alone jumping in said sea swimming after dolphins.
We had booked the morning tour and Nicola wasn’t doing so well with the earlyish start and the choppy nerves. When checking in Luke was given a full warning that the trip could be cancelled at any point given the storm swell and that if it was to go ahead there would be plenty of vom potential.
After waiting around for a while in the cafe we were all called up to get wetsuits on, grab flippers and sit in the briefing room. The film had been rolling for about 30 seconds before someone came in and said the trip had been cancelled which was met with both disappointment and a sigh of relief. The trip itself would have cost £100 each and to have Nicola throwing up continuously and the sea being dark and menacing it kind of lost its appeal in a big way.
After changing and getting a refund we drove back to the campsite and in that time the heavens were lashing it down with wind smashing it sideways into our faces. Good call on not going out.
We then got very comfortable in the TV room at the campsite and barely left the whole day bar to make lunch and dinner. Nicola even brought her duvet much like she does when she is hibernating from bad weather at home in the UK. There we basically just watched TV, played games and Luke spent some much needed time writing up the blog with a bottle of vino.
In the evening we had another hot tub session although by 8pm this water had turned pretty rancid and wasn’t as warm as we would have liked but took some of the wind edge off.
We had already booked accommodation for the next few weeks so unfortunately any chance of rebooking the dolphin tour in the near or distant future wouldn’t have worked so we packed up and started driving down to Christchurch.
On the way we stopped by the Kaikoura seal colony and did a loop of the peninsula walkway. Not all that many seals here but the walk along the coast and up the hillside was nice.
Comentarios