Whales and wine

Unfortunately the weather deteriorated so the afternoon whale watch was also called off, so we decided to cheer ourselves up by going out for a slap up meal. Ended up at this really nice bar/restaurant where Nath ordered the biggest crayfish meal in the world, which he says was fantastic! There was also a really cool singer with a guitar so we hung out there for the rest of the night (nothing to do with the fact that the dessert menu was amazing, honest...)!


Kaikoura scenery

The next day we got up early as we had managed to get 2 spaces on the dolphin swim trip, which was great news seeing as we'd tried booking it the day before and were told there might not be enough space. Got to the place where we had to change (or shoehorn in Naths case) into full wetsuits and were given a briefing before jumping on a boat to try and track down the dolphins. We'd swam with a trained dolphin before so had it in our heads what to expect but couldn't have prepared for the experience - it was amazing. The captain had a tip off so we finally came to a stop - we were expecting to see a couple of dolphins, but we were in the middle of a pod of about 400!!!!!! We had to slide off the back of the boat as quietly as possible, which was difficult seeing as the water was absolutely freezing, but once we were in we quickly forgot the cold. I cannot believe the amount of dolphins that were swimming past us and with us - you'd put your face in the water (we were given a mask and snorkel) and see a whole group of them come towards you. As they are all completely wild we were told a couple of tips to make them more interested in you - circling with them and making completely stupid noises. However silly we felt it worked and it was probably one of the best experiences we've had here so far - amazing! Especially as it was calving season so all of these dolphins had tiny little babies with them too.


Dusky dolphins of Kaikoura (looking like a school of sharks in the last picture)

After that we had rebooked to do the whale watch - finally they confirmed we were all set to go. The sea was pretty choppy and because we'd been out in the morning aswell we both were feeling pretty rough by the time we got out there. Stace was expecting for the boat to drive straight to a whale but obviously its not that easy - we were boating all over the place trying to find them, and the captain had this big microphone he'd put in the water to determine where they were. We were starting to think we weren't going to see anything when all of a sudden there it was - again, I think we were expecting to see the whole thing, but obviously you only see the top (in fact, we could be mistaken for thinking it was a big floating treetrunk), only thing giving it away was the spray every couple of minutes. When it got bored and decided to dive, well that was pretty spectacular - you get to see its massive tail as it comes out of the water - wow!! We only managed to see 3 whales inbetween hearing most of the cabin puking (nice) - luckily we managed to keep our dinner down.


The spraying log and its final dive

After the knackering previous day we took a slow drive around the coastline up to the Marlborough wine district. Most of the guide books advise you to stay in a place called Blenhiem but we'd had a recommendation to stay in a little backpackers place in a town called Renwick, just outside (thanks Neil). However, we stopped in Blenheim for lunch on the way through, we parked up the van and luckily ate in a restaurant opposite when Nath noticed someone eying up the van. He decided to go over and ended up having an argument with a traffic warden who had ticketed us for parking the van facing the wrong way up the street - another stupid New Zealand law! Anyway, nothing we could do about it, so drove to the council building where we had to pay the $40 fine and Stace jumped out to pay it. Luckily, her wily feminine charms got the better of the guy behind the desk and he cancelled the ticket for us (apparently it happens a lot to British tourists) - result!!!!


On the way to Renwick

Anyway, got to Watson Way backpackers - what a great little place, the owners were lovely (Nath decided the guy looked like Rolf Harris), and the facilities were really good and clean. We had a quick scout around the place (didn't take long as there was hardly anything there) and decided we'd do the winery tour the following day. Luckily the weather was glorious (apart from a pretty strong wind) so we hired some bikes and started off around 11am. Got back to the site around 4ish, after having wine tasting stops in all of the winerys around our cycle loop (about 8 of them), slightly worse for wear - what a great day. Obviously it would have been rude not to buy a bottle in each of them (well, from the amount of tastings we did we must have nailed a bottle in each anyway), and we've also ordered a crate of really good Sauvingnon Blanc to be sent back to the UK too. When we got back that night Nath decided to cook tea so went back to the van to get the food and ended up locking the keys in the van - doh! The rental place he phoned was no help at all, so Rolf offered to help break into the van with him however, luckily after trying to wedge a bar into the door Nath tried one of the windows and found that Stace hadn't closed one properly - phew! After that ordeal we had a very surreal night - in this little place in the middle of nowhere Nath bumped into Helen from Bristol, someone he knew from years ago - how mad is that, half way across the world in a remote backpacker place!!!!


The cycle tour of the winery's (followed by the end result...)!

We're now in Nelson, on our way up to Abel Tasmen National Park where the beaches and walking are supposed to be great. However, we've ran out of luck on the weather front and its bucketing down with rain yet again! Fingers crossed it clears for tomorrow as we've still got alot of suntanning to do (or so Nath tells me anyway)...