Note: Apparently there weren’t actually any photos taken before we went whale watching, so this is a little heavy on the text side!
This day was to have a different format to most of our other days. As you may have been able to tell (if you have read all our entries up to this point), have tended to be in a routine of getting up, breakfasting and then getting on the road. Today was going to be skew-whiff on account that we managed to bag ourselves some last minute whale watching tickets thanks to Louise’s dedication in finding a company. Our tour scheduled at 4pm gave us an unplanned day in the area of Kiakoura.
Not sure how to start, a few of us were interested in doing some fishing if we it were possible. Katy and I headed out to town to see if we could find a place for us to hire some gear but we came to no luck. Not sure what we should do we had a group coffee in the town and sat back.
During this, it occurred to me that we had past a fishing and hunting shop on the travel the afternoon before. As a few of us were interested in the idea of fishing I thought I could buy a small collapsible rod to take with me on the rest of my backpacking adventure. That and the fact the big van also required some refuelling a small group headed out to see what could be found.
The shop had a great selection of rods but given what I was after, sea fishing would be off the table. I asked about fresh water fishing licenses and was staggered to find out that a tourist fishing license for up to a year costs in the region of 180 Dollars (90 pounds). This was enough to end my curiosity of fishing whist in New Zealand.
At a loss for a plan there was one fallback we could rely on. A pub crawl of downtown kaikura. Now I mean the was one small place but we could still make it work by performing a brave hearted 2 pub crawl. The first pub we went into would be fitting back at home as a bar. Very casual and the takeway of interest was they did a crystal clear cider.
On the way to pub number 2 in our 2 pub pub crawl we started hearing an air raid siren. Blaring through the town this instinctively raised all our panic levels. Was this a tsunami warning? Were we about to be faced with some form of impending doom? Well if this were the case it did strike us as odd that no-one else around behaved in any different manner the they had been pre-siren. We walked in the the second pub to investigate.
Whistle browsing the selection on taps in this venue, the staff behind the bar informed up that the siren was in fact the Volunteer fire service. It turns out that a lot of places rely on volunteer fire departments and the use of the siren calls out to those brave volunteers the they are needed. At the time of writing this entryI have not done the research to know how effective this system is, as to me it seems to be quite risky to pin your hope of rescue on would be heroes of the day. What if all the volunteers are busy?
Before we knew it the afternoon had sped by and it was time for us to get to the whale watching office. On leaving the pub the weather had just turned and the rain began to splatter against the windows of the pub. Just our luck. Mind you, we were about to get onto a boat so it wasn’t the end of the world.
A short drive away, those who abstained in the pub crawl drove us around the corner and we checked in to our tour. The first thing that Janye had noticed was the the massive LCD screen behind the reception informed all guests of the current sea sickness rating. It read “Severe”. As someone who generally doesn’t get motion sickness I wasn’t sure how to intreat this. I’m sure it would be fine. Those in the group who normally do suffer this had already taken medication to prevent any sickness so we were good to go.
We waiting for our safety briefing which provided some useful information aside from the obvious statements of “Don’t jump off the side of the boat”. The most useful thing I did learn though was that if someone did go overboard, don’t take your eyes off of them. Instead keep shouting “man overboard” and keep eyes on to not lose them. Makes sense but also provides a decent little scare in realigning how pathetically small you could be when floating out in the ocean.
In a jet powered catarman we left the calmest waters of the bay and powered into the open sea. The waves ferociously crashed against the boat and we were going up and down in sync with the waves. The staff did advise that if anyone did feel the effects to the sea that they should go near the back of the boat as it would be calmer.
As we headed miles away from the coast we were shown informational videos and pictures about the sperm whale. This was going to be the whale we were most likely going to see on our tour today. It was interesting to learn that they dive for 45 to 60 minutes at a time between coming up for breaths. Pretty cool that they can remain oxygenated for such a large amount of time (mind you they are bloody massive!). This also aids the tour company as they don’t tend to move much between their dives, so wherever they were last seen diving tends to be wherever the will pop up again.
Before long we were told to go outside to the side of the boat as a shifting had occurred. We all made our way outside and there it was, a giant mound in the water which was billowing water out of its blowhole. Amazing to see it was good to not be hitting through the water any more. The long trip out the water had started to make me feel unwell (turns out I do get seasick) and I could also spot a few other green looking faces on board.
We went upstairs to gain a better vantage of the whale from height. It was impressive to see the size of this creature and watch as it was breathing store oxygen for it’s next dive. The crew told us to stay focused as it was likely the whale was about to dive again. Almost as if listening to the instruction the whales then decided to start going down, which was evidenced by it’s tail rising out of the water as it pointed itself downwards.
Still plenty of time on the tour, the captain was keen to see if we could find a second whale. We were ushered back into the boat, and now the smell of sick. Turns out that a few people (and to be fair, totally understandably) could not stop their sea sickness from kicking in.
We manoeuvred around for a bit, switching between full powered acceleration and bobbing along. I’m sure this was doing no favours to those feeling unwell (and again it was making me feel rough as well). However all of sudden the staff quickly opened the doors and we were told we were next to a second whale.
Same as before I headed up to the top deck to get better views. This time I had the camera on hand, which also acted as a telescope to zoom into the whale. I managed to capture the tail flicking up as this whale was diving into the depths below.
The tour ended and we were glad to be back on solid land once again. The motion of the boat stuck with us however and it did feel like I was gently swaying as we walked back to the van. The rain was continuing and da was turning to night. Keen to spend as little time as possible doing night driving we got straight on the road and made way to the outskirts of Christchurch.
We pulled into a service station that was close enough to our campsite location in Christchurch. The McDonalds there claimed to be open until 1am on google and we figured this was the best option for a dinner we could get this evening. We arrived about 10 minutes before the other van and during this time the branch had sadly closed its doors. The manager kindly informed us that the drive through was the part that was open until 1am.
We got everyones order and made our way through the drive through in our green van. Given there were only two of us in the van I hope they realise we were ordering for other people and not gorging down 8 meals between us. As the restaurant itself was closed we all ate in the big van, appreciating our late but well welcomed dinner.
A short drive and we had made it to our next campsite. Louise had called them earlier in the day to let them know that we would be arriving late and so they kindly pinned the information we needed to the door. We had our lots adjacent to each other and parked up in the darkness. Given we were all tired there wasn’t much chit chat apart from the good nights and see you in the mornings. Time to sleep!