Nov 20th – Today’s trip was up the coast to Kaikoura, yet another seaside town. It is well known as a place to see dolphins, albatross and whales. We chose the whale trip. Again we lucked out, arriving to find the 12:45 and 1:15 sailings fully booked. We asked to be wait-listed for those and confirmed for the 3:30 sailing. We were quite surprised to hear our name called for the 12:45 boat. Since it was a nice warm sunny day, we were looking forward to being out on the water.

The boat is a large sea catamaran which goes out about 9 km. A number of sperm whales make the sea canyon in this area their home and the tour operators obviously know their patterns well. A sperm whale can stay down in the ocean depths for 45 – 60 minutes and will then stay on the surface for about 20 minutes. When we arrived at the spot where the previous boat had spotted a whale, they told us that another boat had indicated that the whale had been down for 20 minutes so it would be awhile before he resurfaced. They used the sonar to track his clicks and evidently when they no longer hear the clicks they know he is getting ready to resurface. Shortly thereafter not one, but two sperm whales surfaced – it was our lucky day. There was lots of excitement aboard as everyone took their spot for good photos. I was up to about 50 shots by the time he raised his tail and headed back down to his feeding ground.

After the boat trip we drove up to the lookout point which provided a lovely view of the ocean and snow capped peaks all in one view. On our way back to Christchurch, we stopped at the Nor’wester Cafe in Amberley. It didn’t have white table cloths (mother’s requirement for choosing a restaurant) but the dinner was delicious and the dessert even better. We chose parsnip and carrot cake and it was so good I asked for the recipe. Unfortunately the answer was no, so I’ll just have to try to replicate it myself.