Kaikoura

‘And, that’s why’ she said, placing her hands firmly on her hips and glaring down menacingly at us, ‘I needed to sit in that seat. I just vomited.’.

‘Excuse me?’ I said while MoD laughed because he didn’t hear her words.

‘It’s not funny!’ She cried.

We were on a whale watch cruise in Kaikoura.

Kaikoura is a quaint little town on the east coast of the South Island about 180km north of Christchurch. Population about 2550, it is more known recently for the devastating earthquake which hit in November 2016, killing two people and damaging the area significantly. The bay and surrounding areas were uplifted by around 2 metres.

The weather for the weekend had not been our friend.

Our last weekend together before MoD took off on a long promised two week Italy trip with his youngest daughter.

It rained.

And it rained.

And then rained some more.

But, having said that, while we were on our whale watching experience it didn’t really rain much.

Go figure.

I, who should never be trusted to book accommodation, had booked what was advertised as a ‘tiny house’.

Now from my reckoning I expected a tiny house would be exactly that.

A house totally enclosed in one building – and tiny.

This my friends, it was not.

Instead, a Bedford truck (which to be fair, was pretty cool).

……..with some decking……..and a seperate building for the bathroom and laundry.

In reasonable weather that might have been fine.

But when it’s freezing and torrential rain?

Well frankly it wasn’t.

The heating consisted of a small, and I mean small, look alike gas fire, actually electric. Which did not work the first night.

A trip to the supermarket was in order and the purchase of two hot water bottles.

At least our feet could be warm.

The information sheet told us if we ran too many appliances the electricity would shut off.

Turns out the kettle and the heater were too many appliances.

The TV did not work.

Oh it came on, but it couldn’t receive anything.

Not even good ole’ NZ free-to-air TV.

There was no internet.

Although the TV promised Netflix.

Not much else to do but curl up in bed on our first night of our romantic get away.

Fully clothed.

Thick army socks.

And hot water bottle.

Very romantic.

Am I whinging?

Poor MoD you say?

Who always does make the best of everything and didn’t complain at all. Who just laughed and said first world problems.

True.

But.

Those who know me? Well, midnight trips in the pouring rain to the toilet are a whole new rant and a whole other level.

At my age, one can’t get through a night without at least one trip.

Ok. Maybe two or three.

Damn lucky Kaikoura has good coffee shops.

At least I could enjoy that first world luxury. One I have come to expect. And demand.

The next morning we were able to get a very decent single shot soy latte. Or two.

And to further redeem herself, like I said, Kaikoura put on a pretty good spot of weather for our whale watching.

And dolphin watching.

Truly amazing.

Half price people. Which is a significant saving.

Apparently, mid-winter breaks in these parts can mean half price activities.

The whale watching commenced at the whale watching offices of Whale Watch Kaikoura. As you would expect.

We were told to arrive promptly at 10.

We didn’t leave until 10.35 when we boarded a bus and were taken some distance away to the wharf to board.

There was no seat allocation so we chose one by the window.

There were a number of stops giving us the opportunity to head out to the deck and view the marine life.

Which was pretty spectacular.

After our first stop we headed back into the cabin and chose to sit somewhere else. I mentioned to MoD this would be interesting, people DO like to sit in the same spot. And we were mixing it up.

Mind games.

Interesting it was.

Our vomiting friend was not impressed and as soon as the boat stopped again and we headed out to the deck, she made a huge dive to where we had been seated.

And continued to vomit into her rather full looking brown bag.

TMI you say?

Normally I might have some sympathy but in this instance I did not.

Enough said.

Whilst we only spotted one whale, the 15.19m Lazarus, he was absolutely fascinating.

Lazarus was first spotted in November 1993, he hung around until 2000 and then disappeared for 15 years.

But back he is.

And puts on a rather fine show for the few minutes he surfaces.

Absolutely spectacular.

On the way back we were lucky enough to see a whole pod of frolicking dolphins.

As we left the vessel the rain commenced again.

Lucky!

We headed into town for a very nice lunch at Strawberry Tree. Which is actually a cool little pub where they even let the Princess join us. Although we were relegated to the outdoor eating area.

Fortunately there were no smokers.

I still can’t get it in my head that smoking is allowed here at outdoor restaurants.

Oh yes, I could go on about that too.

The evening meal was spent at Black Rabbit Pizza. We had to book and couldn’t get in until the 7.30 sitting (of course by that time we were starvin’).

After all it had been at least 5 hours since our last meal.

We do like to eat.

When we got to Black Rabbit it was completely empty.

Service was exceptional 😜

Pizza not too bad.

Turns out the lady who owns it is a local and her two brothers both own fish shops at opposite ends of the town.

Next morning was check out – yes still raining – a quick coffee, drive around town and back to Chch.