Kaikoura - New Zealand
/After lots of time away from family in unfamiliar cultures, we were very excited to travel to New Zealand to visit my brother and sister-in-law, Justin and Tania Peterson, for Christmas and New Year’s Eve. After a few very long flights, arriving in Christchurch, New Zealand felt a little like coming home with clear-cut rules, clean restrooms, and native English-speakers everywhere. Our first weekend in New Zealand the four of us traveled north from Christchurch to Kaikoura, a tiny beach town on the South island with a lot of tourist activities.
Hotels were almost fully booked, so we selected a strange-looking option called “Wacky Stays.” Each unit was completely different, with the option to stay in a teepee, an old truck, a train caboose, and a historic farmer’s cottage. All were booked except the farmer’s cottage, which was set inside a sheep paddock. The owner told us to be careful of the sheep escaping when we entered and exited with our car, as they are quite clever.
Saturday morning, we had booked a dusky dolphin encounter in the cold Pacific Ocean waters. We’ve all had a little experience here and there with swimming with dolphins, but agreed that this was probably the neatest experience. Dolphins in the area are not fed to come see visitors, so any encounters with them are 100% natural. We were very lucky, and the dolphins were completely swarming us as we shivered in our wetsuits. One dolphin actually pooped in Justin’s face while he was underwater, and Chuck saw two of them mating!
After the dolphins, we went back to Wacky Stays since our time with them included a free visit to the animals on the farm. We fed llamas, alpacas, ponies, and even a sad-looking deer. The man who owned the place told us we were welcome to go in the enclosures, and then promptly disappeared. I couldn’t believe how tall the llamas were, and how persistent they were as we fed them from our hands. Next, we went on a lovely long hike around the village to see the view from some amazing vistas and visit a few seal colonies. Justin (who is a geologist) gave us some great information about the geologic features of the area as we hiked.
The following morning, Chuck and I had booked two dives in the hopes of seeing some seals at eye level in the water. The water was too cold for me to complete both dives, but Chuck did both of his. We did see a large octopus staring at us as we swam by. The dive master was on “island time” and the four-hour planned dive morning ended up taking more like six or seven hours. After that we headed back to Christchurch, stopping at a lovely vineyard for some wine tasting, followed by a fantastic brewery along the way home.
To watch the video in a decent resolution, please go to the gear in the lower-right corner of the Youtube video and select 1080px or higher, otherwise it will look blurry!
Photo credit goes to Tania Peterson, my beautiful sister-in-law! Click on photos to enlarge.
