We arrived in Kaikoura yesterday and the weather was brilliant; sunny, blue skies, and 28 degrees. Alas, this morning it was a bit cloudy, but still quite humid and with a light breeze, so we plopped ahead with our hike.
I have to say that Kaikoura holds a special place for me, as I visited it the first time in 1999 during my ill fated Kiwi Experience (for those of you who know that bus crash story), but I did fall in love with Kaikoura. The contrast of the blue seas, crashing waves, grey and black sand beaches, jutted up against staggeringly high mountains - it was stunning and impresses me every time we come here.
My next time back was in 2008 with Ted when we did the whirl wide (2 island campervan tour) when he proposed to me. We were back again in 2023 and a lot had changed, especially after the horrific earthquake of 2016. But the scenery is still just as majestic and jaw dropping.
Yesterday we arrived, checked into our Holiday Top 10 cabin and walked the town; specifically to Kaikoura Encounters to pre-register Ted for his dolphin swim the next morning. 4:30am on Monday morning Ted was up and out the door and raring to go for his dolphin swim, having done it in 2023 and thoroughly loved it.
Well, I can attest that when we walked back into the room at 9:30 he clearly was equally charmed. He said the water was even clearer and the dolphins played with him, so he was thrilled - see some of the shots he got before betting into the water. I will say that later that same day, after our epic 5 hour hike through a bird colony and fur seal colony we stopped for a beer before walking back into Kaikoura and literally in front of us about 200 meters were a pod of dolphins doing multiple back flips. Everyone jumped up from the patio to run across the street to take photos. It was specially to see and Ted could appreciate it that much more having actually swum with them …
The other highlight from our day today was the hike and the fur seal colony. You can literally walk right up to them (of course there are signs to not disturb them), but we were curious and took some great shots - as there were so many babies popping into and out of the water - I will send a separate video to show you some of the baby seals playing …
It was a great day and just solidified why I love Kaikoura so much.
Ps Sorry we missed Super Bowl, but we heard Travis did not win, so TS much be sad this evening (EST).
Cheers
Robert and Ted
