Kaikoura

I spent my first whole weekend off since before harvest started bye going to a small beach town just 2 hours south of Blenheim.  The town is called Kaikoura; in Maori Kai means "food" and Koura means "crayfish".  The crayfish or as we know it, rock lobster is quite a popular dish here and Kaikoura is known throughout New Zealand as the destination for crayfish.


    

My friends and I picked a great weekend to visit, it was sunny skies and 52 F and the ocean was very calm and made it a perfect day to swim with wild dolphins! 

 There is one company that takes people out on the ocean to swim with the dolphins, the water was quite cold but they put us all in wet-suits and took us out in search of the dolphins.

 

Along the way we were able to see quite a few albatross.  Our skipper told us that these birds are quite heavy and need the help of wind in order to fly, this particular day- there was no wind.  It was amazing to see them as they were flying and trying to take off.        

Once the skipper found a pod of dolphins we jumped in the 15 C water and we were able to swim with them.  There were hundreds of Dusky Dolphins for us to swim  with, and a whole pod swam right though our snorkeling group. 

 

 

After we swam with the dolphins we were told we were swimming in depths of 500 meters! After swimming with the dolphins, on our way back to the docks our skipper found 2 humpback whales, the first ones for the season.  This was quite a treat, as this company has different charter boats to view whales, albatross and dolphins, so we lucked out and got the best tour of all!

 

Back on shore, we went to the seal colony and found some seals relaxing in the sunset.

This was the view of the sunset from Kaikoura, a great ending to an adventurous day!

                                       

Here is what the crayfish look like and they were delicious!!

Before.......

........After

Overall it was a great weekend for swimming with dolphins, whale and albatross watching eating crayfish and spending time with the friends that have become more like family to me since being abroad.  I look forward to sharing more pictures with everyone! Thanks for reading :)