Kaikoura

May 15, 16

Travelling further down the east coast you arrive at the beautiful town of Kaikoura. It’s only a 2 ½ hour bus ride. First you drive through beautiful farmland, pastures with many cows and sheep, beautifully green, reminiscent of English countryside. Then the route takes you right along side the ocean. It’s the Pacific here on this side. And it was a most spectacular route. It could easily be called a Great Ocean Road too. We were so close you could even see seals lounging on the rocks if you looked fast enough.

The cool thing about the buses here is that they drop you off either in front of, or very near to the town’s information site. And each town seems to have on too. So my current mode of traveling works out very well. I get off the bus, go in to the i-site find out what activities I might partake in and get tips on accommodation. It worked out perfectly in Kaikoura because they had an afternoon kakaying tour. They didn’t mind going out just for me and the conditions were good enough. Perfect. The guide, Gary, figured that since I already had kayaking experience we’d enter on the south side of the peninsula and paddle all the way around. The water was rougher on that side, and more so again as we got further out to sea. But it was a lot of fun. I got completely drenched. I felt a bit like I was on a wild water ride at an amusement park. We watched some seals feeding on octopus. Very cool. And once we got around the first bend we had the waves behind us and got a couple of good surfs in on some of them. After more sheltered waters we were able to paddle leisurely around the seal colony watching them hang about, doing their business. Some of them looked a little curiously but mostly they didn’t pay us much attention. We mostly saw terns in the bird category though also an albatross from afar.

In the evening I went to get something to eat at a restaurant in town and a lovely couple from Bath, England invited me to join them since they noticed I was on my own. It was very sweet of them and we had a nice conversation with amazing fish and chips that came with a free glass of wine.

The next morning I was out by quarter to eight in the morning…astounding that will be for some people…in order to go on a 3 hour hike around the peninsula. The morning light was so beautiful and fresh and the clouds had lifted off the mountains and I could see them in their snow-topped magnificence. The hike up along the top of the cliff was particularly spectacular. I was in awe of the beauty. How much more beautiful can the world get? On one side you faced beautiful alpine mountains not unlike Switzerland and then you turn around and see the vast blue ocean below you from the rugged cliffs similar to Cape Breton perhaps. Everywhere you look, weit und breit, there is so much beauty. I was completely filled with joy.
I made it back in time to pick up my backpack, check out of the hotel and catch the next bus, destination Christchurch. We drove for a while with the mountains on our right and the ocean on the left and then I don’t know what happened after that because I fell asleep.