New Zealand trip Day 14 - Kaikoura

The township of Kaikoura on the east coast, north of Christchurch, is famous for its history, its seafood and its marine animals. It is a bit of a tourist Mecca. We spent a day there exploring, but eschewed the expensive touristy options. Should you have deeper pockets than ours and you don't have whales and dolphins visiting your local beach, you can enjoy such things as helicopter or plane rides to view whales, or boat trips to see albatrosses, or you can swim with the dolphins or seals, or you can spend the day on a Maori cultural tour.

South of the "whale-way" line (sic) is the recreational harbour. It was teeming with boats and strewn with boat trailers. The locals live on the water, especially on a beautiful Saturday like this.

This part of town is the most historic, being the site of the original whaling station. Back in the day, the whales were not reverentially viewed, they were hauled up on this beach for slaughter. Ghastly to imagine. It is a nursery bay for mothers and calves.

Limestone rocks right on the beach

Fyffe house, an early whaling captain's dwelling. Pretty good view from the verandah, but I imagine the smell of rotting whale corpses would have taken the gloss off it.

The house actually has whale vertebrae as its foundations, and used whale ribs as fence posts.

Interesting in a rather sad way. But there was an excellent Maori cultural room, with traditional stories recorded in the lovely voice of a local Maori woman.

Had a seafood chowder from this famed place. It was very good. Followed up by sheep's milk icecream.

A little walk to view the town from up high on Mt Fyffe Road.

A little fossick around the local museum.

Then it was on the road again, heading for Hanmer Springs, our final day's destination. Thermal springs resort place, high in the mountains.

Arrived there late afternoon and were instructed by the nice lady at our accommodation to go to the Springs immediately. Beautiful this time of day, she said.

So we did. Aaahhh. Very pleasant. Back at our accommodation, David lit up the BBQ. Cooked our steaks. Put the asparagus on the hot plate, then realised there were flames. Flames where there should not be flames. The BBQ was on fire. Dashed inside, got the nice lady, who eventually found a fire extinguisher but could not work it. Meanwhile smoke and burning fat going everywhere. David, quite the hero, made the extinguisher foam thing happen and saved the entire hotel from being burned down. Note to BBQ owners: keep the drip tray cleaned of fat!

The next morning, our asparagus was a sorry sight. The nice lady, possibly the owner/manager of the premises, was still being nice to us the next day. She must have an inexhaustible store of nice.