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Having caught the three-hour ferry across the Cook Strait to Picton, we drove to the "warm" northeast of the South Island to picturesque Kaikoura. I say "warm" in that it didn't rain, and the sun shone steadily.
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Swimming With Dolphins in Kaikoura November 18, 2004
Ttrealtravels2005-12-26 15:47:36
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Having caught the three-hour ferry across the Cook Strait to Picton, we drove to the "warm" northeast of the South Island to picturesque Kaikoura. I say "warm" in that it didn't rain, and the sun shone steadily.
I now know why New Zealand is called "the land of the long white cloud." It's because even on good weather days, of which we've had a very remarkable three in a row (first three days the entire trip with no rain: the truth!), there was a still a wispy, misty, thin layer of cloud that hung in the air here.
Kaikoura was full of contrasts. Imagine a long peninsula and seeing nothing but turquoise and blue waters with a sleepy marine life and a little winery town along it. Now imagine grand snow-capped peaks in the background. Voila -- you have Kaikoura in the austral summer! I've never seen anything like it. It's as though we were in Hawaii and someone had gone and painted Yosemite in the background.
On our first Kaikoura afternoon, we visited the Point Kean Seal Reserve and saw exactly one seal up close (the rest were off elsewhere, perhaps a tidal thing). The rocky beach was a lot like Point Reyes in Northern California.
The next morning, we stopped off at the Lookout -- literally a lookout point high upon a hill, which offered great views of both sides of the peninsula. Then it was a brief visit to the Kaikoura Winery for two bottles of wine, having sampled some of the tasty chardonnay at a restaurant the night before.
Finally, we came to the main attraction of the day: swimming with dolphins! We chose a company called simply the Dolphin Encounter, which drove us to the south side of the peninsula. The boat took off, and not 20 minutes from shore, we were already spotting pods of Dusky dolphins. Wearing wetsuits for the second time this trip, we hopped into the frigid water, and before we knew it, we
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See photographs from:
New Zealand Gallery
