Animal magic
12th-23rd February 2007

I'm not sure whether the East coast of the South Island is supposed to be famous for its wildlife, but it really should be.

Firstly there's Kaikoura - renowned mainly for its large population of Sperm Whales (in the sea, not around the town), but Kaikoura is also known as a good place for dolphin spotting trips and has more seals than you can shake a stick at. Not that you would shake a stick at one, they're actually quite aggressive and will let you know in no uncertain terms when you get too close for comfort. As you edge towards them, camera in hand, they eye you suspiciously, then raise themselves up as tall as they'll go (which is surprisingly tall actually), then their last warning is a loud sort of "hurumph", at which point, we discovered, it is best to start backing away. Anyway, our main reason for being in Kaikoura was to see the whales. Everyone we met on our travels, including our trusty friend the Lonely Planet, told us that this is THE place to go whale-watching, so we arrived there and straight away booked ourselves on a trip. Now, turn to page 457 of your Lonely Planet guide to NZ, does anyone see any mention of the potential hazards of whale watching? Of course not... Nobody tells you until you've paid your money and booked the trip, that the sea off the Kaikoura coast has a notoriously bad swell, which on the day we arrived for our trip, carried a 'seasickness warning'. Undeterred, we purchased seabands and ginger tablets and set off in the appropriately named boat "Paikea" (meaning "Whale-rider" - although we were reassured that whales never resurface underneath a boat so the actual 'riding' of whales was a near impossibility). Ten minutes later after hurtling over waves higher than the boat itself, we both looked kind of pale. Another five minutes later Dave was looking a colour I've never seen him go before and was staring ominously into his complimentary (and tactfully-named) seabag. I did the dutiful loving partner thing and screwed my face up, turned my back and put my fingers in my ears. By this time he'd gone... well what I can only describe as 'waxy-looking'.The crew helpfully told us: "if you're feeling a little seasick, try to focus on the horizon - it tricks your mind into thinking you're on land". Now this is a good idea in theory, except for the fact that on the way up a wave, all you can see is sky, and when you're going down the other side of it all you can see is sea... in fact the only time you can see any sign of the horizon is the millisecond the boat is on top of a wave! As it happened, both of us kept a firm hold on our breakfasts and despite feeling rougher than the sea, had four stunning whale-sightings, and even managed to get some of the obligatory tail-shot photos as the whales went in for a dive. Definitely worth it, but probably a once-in-a-lifetime trip!

After Kaikoura we went to Christchurch and had co-ordinated our visit with a couple of Dave's cousins (Peter and Conor), their partners and a few friends - was great to see them all and we spent a couple of good evenings with them and in various Christchurch bars, bars, bars and restaurants.

Continuing the animal theme we visited the Antarctic Centre, which was really good fun. Had a close-up encounter with CC the little blue penguin - and very cute she was too. It took all my strength not to pick her up and cuddle her. Also got to experience an Antarctic storm in a room that had real snow, and best of all a slide made out of ice!! We were of course the only adults on it, running up and down the steps that had a 'no running' warning on them, and battering small children out of our way to get our turn, but as we left we noticed other people starting to get up the courage to go on it, so we like to think we started something there.

Next we visited Oamaru, and more penguins. First of all we went to watch the yellow eyed penguin colony, or what we assumed were yellow-eyed penguins anyway - we were that far away they could have easily been more cormorants just having a laugh at our expense. Afterwards we went back to have a special behind the scenes tour of the Little Blue Penguin colony... to erm... find out what they do once their evening show is over (presumably stepping out of full penguin make-up and costumes and back into cormorant clothes). Later on we watched them all come back from a day's fishing to feed their babies. This was a real treat, and again, I had to be restrained to stop myself from following any of them back to their burrows or running off with the fluffy babies.

After Oamaru it was on to Dunedin. Lovely place Dunedin... home of NZ's Cadbury's factory and Speights brewery! As we had a bit of wildlife fatigue by this time we decided to forego all the various seal/albatross/cormorant, and even penguin tours on offer and went for the Willy Wonka tour - unfortunately no comedy stories of us falling in vats of chocolate, or watching squirrels sorting nuts, as nothing much seemed to be happening in there at the time, but the lady did very enthusiastically explain to us how they get the chocolate buttons inside the easter eggs.... yes, given enough time, most people may have been able to work that one out for themselves, but we didn't want to steal the lady's thunder as she seemed very excited to be sharing that little secret! We didn't get around to doing the Speights tour, and also missed seeing the worlds steepest street, but I'm sure we'll be back sometime for those treats!

After having 'done' the East Coast, it was time for the mountainous treats of Fiordland, but as the drive was going to be quite a long one we decided to stop off along the bottom coast of the South Island for a night, and stayed in the very picturesque Colac Bay, with its beautiful wide surf beach. It's a shame we hadn't booked ourselves in for longer as we could have spent a few days just enjoying the scenery.

As Dave said, "What a lovely bottom NZ has!". I couldn't have put it better myself.