We be rollin', but the whales be hatin'.

Saturday, October 18
South Island: Kaikoura to Christchurch

We were up early the next morning in order to pack up and get into town for our whale watching adventure. Judy, having had to be at work before the sun was even up, left us the number of a shuttle service to call. We called for our shuttle, had some fresh fruit and museli for breakfast, and were at Whale Watch by 10.

Despite the clear skies over Kaikoura, there was talk of a bad southerly blowing in before long. It was currently over Christchurch, and moving fast. We crossed our fingers and hoped that it would miss Kaikoura, though the people at Whale Watch didn’t seem too optimistic.

It turns out they were right. We actually got out on the water with the hope that we could make it to the whales before the bad weather blew in. But the whales were too far away, and the storm was coming too fast. The helicopter scout out over the trench where the whales were said it was “whitecap city” out there, meaning it would be too dangerous for the boat. After seeing two fast-moving dolphins, we had to head back to shore. Stupid whales, just had to be hatin.’

Whale Watch refunded us 100 percent of our money, which was good, at least. But we were still pretty bummed about not getting to see any whales. Our dream trip wasn’t exactly off to the greatest start.

Missing out on the whales meant we now had roughly four hours to kill before we had to catch our bus to Christchurch. In those four hours, we realized just how small Kaikoura was. We spent our time hopping from café to café, not really able to do much else with the rain drenching the town.

Soggy, tired and cold, we climbed aboard our bus just before 4. The drive to Christchurch, though mostly along the New Zealand coastline, wasn’t very impressive because of the storm. But, by the time we reached the south island’s largest city around 6:30, the storm was left behind us, and the skies were beginning to clear.

We checked into Coachman’s Backpackers, deposited our bags in our 6-person room, and headed around the corner to Cathedral Square, in the middle of downtown. It’s called Cathedral Square for obvious reasons – there’s a big old church right in the middle. There was also a weird purple sculpture in the square, which turned out to be giant dog sperm. If that wasn’t odd enough, it was crushing humans. I’m not exactly sure what the artist was trying to say about dogs and their sperm, but I feel like it wasn’t very positive.

After taking some photos in the square, we hit up the souvenir shops. There are a ton to choose from in downtown Christchurch, and Andrea insisted we go into nearly every one. But the time passed quickly, and we all ended up buying some gifts for people.

We then asked around for a good place to have dinner, and were directed to the Honey Pot. We traced our way back through Cathedral Square, where we stopped to take a few more pictures of the church and what looks like a big, leafy metal funnel as they were lit up in the last rays of dusk. Then we made our way to the Honey Pot for dinner. We all shared two servings of some sort of chicken alfredo, which was delicious. But Andrea gorged herself, and swore she would never eat fettuccini again. Have you kept your promise, Drebo?

On the way out, some guys were making kissing noises at us (or at least Jamie) on the sidewalk. Andrea, still feeling sick from eating so much, just groaned, and, once we were out of earshot, said, “He would not want me. I am going to have fettuccini coming out of my butt in 10 minutes.” Jamie and I didn’t stop laughing until we got back to our hostel.

While Coachman’s is nice enough, none of us liked the fact that we were sharing the room with other people. One was a younger Asian kid who was fairly quiet, and the other was this creepy old guy who had his creepy boots on in bed, and snored all night. It was horrible. Andrea and I were both up most of the night, tossing turning, and groaning our frustration.