Adventuring.

Friday, October 17
South Island: Picton to Kaikoura

We woke up early on Friday to shower, pack up and check out. The showering in particular went quickly (for me, at least), as it was difficult to find a shower that had hot water. We left our bags awkwardly in the hallway while we went out to explore Picton.

Picton, I can tell you, really doesn’t require too much exploring, however. I’d compare it to Ada, except remove the University and add in the ocean and more tourist shops. We wandered around for a while, popping into just about every souvenir store we could find. (This would be a continuing trend throughout our trip.) It was slightly chilly, but the sun was out, much to our surprise.

At Andrea’s insistence, we had lunch at Gusto’s, a small cafe. Andrea and her dad ate there when they were in the south, and Andrea couldn’t stop going on about their ham sandwiches and museli bars. I ended up going for the eggs and bacon on toast, which did not disappoint.

We headed back to the Villa to collect our bags around 12:15, then hitched a ride to the ferry terminal in time to catch our 1 p.m. bus to Kaikoura. The 2 1/2 –hour bus ride went by fairly quickly. Part of the drive was along the coast. Though the weather was mostly cloudy, there was a patch of blue sky in the distance that held my interest and made me hope that maybe we’d get some decent weather on this trip afterall (the weather forecasts didn’t look all that promising).

When we got to Kaikoura, we walked into “town” while Andrea called Judy, the owner of the Brook House B&B, where we’d be staying. She picked us up outside the grocery store and took us to her quaint B&B nearly at the foot of the Kaikoura Ranges, the northernmost reach of the Southern Alps. With all the cloud cover, however, the mountains couldn’t be seen.

Judy showed us to our room when we arrived, then introduced us to Louis the poodle and Bruce Willis the senile cat. Somehow, I knew we were going to like it there. Judy then suggested how we could spend the rest of our afternoon and evening. She suggested hiking out near the seal colony, followed by dinner in town. She even offered to drive us and pick us up. Now that’s what I call service!

The first stop was the peninsula seal colony. On our drive out there, Judy told us a little about herself, and about Kaikoura. Kaikoura, a small town of less than 3,000, began as a whaling outpost back when whaling was still legal. Because of the underwater trench just off the coach, there was always an abundance of whales, namely the popular “right whale.” Today, though whaling is illegal, whales are still the source of Kaikoura’s main revenue. These days, Kaikoura is known as New Zealand’s premier spot for whale watching. Judy works for Whale Watch Kaikoura, which is the company we had booked a whale watch through for the next morning.

Judy dropped us off at the peninsula and told us to give her a call when we wanted picked up. It had stopped raining, at least, and a brisk wind hinted that maybe the skies would clear up after all.

We started out by climbing the path that lead to the top of the cliffs overlooking the ocean. We followed a worn path made, we guessed, by the farmer who owned the sheep we could see on the other side of a barbed-wire fence. We followed the path along the cliff’s edge for a bit, stopping every now and then to take a picture. Once we’d had our fill of windy cliffs, we headed back down to the mainland. It was low tide, so we picked our way along the rocks and reef jutting out from shore.

We saw some cool birds (including a big blue one with a really long orange beak), and a few lazy fur seals napping on the rocks. Being brave (or perhaps slightly crazy?) like we are, we all crawled up close to one of the seals to get a scared-looking picture as he went right on napping. Andrea also performed a personal science experiment on a mollusk. And when I say experiment, I mean that she basically killed it by poking at it with a rock, and, once she realized it was dead, continued dissecting it. Poor Milford Mollusk.

The tide soon started creeping in, but luckily we realized it before we were trapped out on the reef. We returned to shore and gave Judy a call to pick us up. By the time she arrived, that blue patch of sky I’d seen from the bus earlier was right over top of us, and even the mountains were starting to emerge from the clouds.

Since it was starting to clear up, Judy decided we needed to see the town from the lookout. She drove us up to the Kaikoura water tower, which also serves as the lookout. The tips of the snow-covered mountains were just peeking out from about the clouds, and the sun was out, making for a fairly impressive view.

After getting a few photos, Judy dropped us off in town again, giving us directions on how to get back to the B&B on foot. Since the weather had cleared up and we didn’t have large bags with us, we didn’t mind having to walk 20 minutes or so. We had dinner at Adelphi, then took a leisurely walk back to Brook House.

The weather continued to clear until the mountains were fully visible on the near horizon, just in time for sunset. We made a short detour on our way back at a playground complete with fake rubber spider web. That sort of thing isn’t something you just walk past!

We got back to the B&B just in time to catch the last pink rays of sunset reflecting off the snowy mountains. The view from Judy’s back porch was amazing; it made me very jealous.

We spent the evening in Judy’s living room, watching TV and eating fresh chocolate muffins in front of the fireplace with two other guests and Louis. It was relaxing, and probably one of the friendliest places we stayed while in NZ. I definitely recommend it!