This was our first proper driving day on the South Island and we were keen to see the landscapes that had brought us here. We were also keen to try and get to do some whale watching and this meant we would need to make our way down to Kaikoura. In a rare twist form the normal, this location had a campsite which Jayne had pre-booked. No last minute scrambling for a campsite for us!
Given that we had a route, we planned out where we could stop and do a midday walk. Katy looked on a map and found that an hour drive or so southwards would bring us close to a lake which had a scenic walk and boat wreckage. It sounded pretty interesting so we got int he vans, got our walking gear ready and headed down.
When we arrived to the car park for the walk we were parked between sewerage processing plants. There wasn’t the awful smell in air that would expect. Having been in the rough area of Becton sewage works a few times back in London (oddly the location of a retail park) I could say this wasn’t too bad. However, we did need to walk between them for a while to get to the start of the walk.
We made our way along and a the end of the valley between the sewage were signs giving history and information about the area. In a quick summary, human are the reason the area was firstly ruined and then decided to be utilised as a sewage plant. Kind of obvious but still somewhat grim to see that we convert a nice patch of land into a literal shit hole.
Louise and Rachel decide that the bigger part of the walk would not be for them and so headed back to the van. We carried on what the signposts said would be a 1 hour 15 minute walk to the boat. This was fact a 30 minute walk and we saw the wreckage of what appeared to be a modern shipping vessel that nature was reclaiming over time.
We made our way around the second half to the loop which would bring us back to the vans. The signs for this part of the alk stated a time of 1 hour 45 minutes. So we assume again that the timing was being for too conservative and that we would breeze this as well. Wrong. The signs this time were far more accurate as the route took us around 1 hour 30 minutes. The lack of consistency in the walk timings are a bit frustrating as it’s really difficult to know when to relieve them and when to dismiss them as codswalop.
We made it back to the van, took our chairs out and enjoyed a nice cup of tea. It was only after sitting outside for a while then Louise asked if we were to get moving soon. None of us picked up on the hint this more a request than a question and it was only when she reminded us we were basically now camping out at a sewage works that it made sense to down the tea and get moving.
Along the route we spotted a sign that provided caution to drivers. It showed a big blob of a seal and said they were in the area for the next few kilometres, Normally I would dismiss the signs as I never sea what they are warning for but all of a sudden an excited voice from Kanye came over the radio “Seals, Left!”. We looked over and sure as, the seals were there on the rocks playing around.
We pulled in at the next chance we could and watched the seals. There were little seal cubs who were learning the ropes of seal life. There were other seals having a fight about something or another. It was entertaining to watch and we stayed for a while taking plenty of photos.
We drove a bit further and found a picnic area where we decided would make a good spot for lunch. Right on the coast the winds were up but it was great to enjoy lunch overlooking the open water. It didn’t take long for the seagulls to suss out what we were up to and they started to gather around us. One gull in particular, who we assume to be the head honcho, stood his ground and squared at the others if they came too close. This one became affectionately named dickhead and we decided to throw a few crumbs to them when we had finished.
We pulled into Kaikoura and we and stopped up at a gift store. In here we had a little mooch about but nothing come to our attention. A text message had rung through, Louise had been able to book last minute places onto a whale watching tour tomorrow afternoon. What a result! With that ticked off our list we headed around the town and looked at a few more shops.
The gang picked up various t shirts and hoodies which had some form of new Zealand resemblance about them as souvenirs. Town appeared to be closing up so we drove a few minutes down the road to our campsite for the evening.
We pulled into the campsite and it was rammed. This place had less of the family charm feeling we had from other establishments and more of a cram them all in type of thing. Interestingly, and we aren’t really sure how as we overheard Jayne when she spoke to the campsite, they had managed to misinterept our group as 2 adults and 6 children with one van and a tent. This didn’t appear to be too much of an issue but went some way to explain the tiny amount of space we had between us.
The campsite lot itself had an impressive view of the neighbouring mountain. The weather pattern in the area created a wall of rolling clouds which come over the mountain and we sat back and watched sun set over this amazing sight. One of the gang had just come back from the loo and said that people had been spotting whales from the beach during the day so we thought we would go try our luck 9and maybe save some money by not doing the tour the next day. Sadly we had no luck and started to get hungry on the shore.
We found only one place open in town and it was going to close soon. With no other options we rushed back to the little high street and entered the Thai food restaurant. They said they would happily have us as long as we ordered straight away. We quickly browse the menu and selected what we wanted. This was the right decision as the food came out pretty timely but it wasn’t long until we were the last inside the premises and it felt like we were delaying the staff on duty from going home.
We headed back to the campsite, Katy and I jumped back into our van and we slept soundly under the misty mountain.