KAIKŌURA – PICTON – WELLINGTON – PARAPARAUMU, 21 May 2024
I woke up at the crack of dawn in Kaikōura to head to the Why Not Café for some coffee, much needed mobile charging and using its WiFi to have a very spotty call and hangout with my partner back home.
I’ve missed them this entire time, but there was SO MUCH on all the time with the main tour that it was easy to keep busy and keep the homesickness at bay. I was living a dream 15 years in the making. With that over, the road trip was, and is, still fun, but it feels very much like a very long homeward journey to me. Going from 0°c snowy Queenstown to a UK imminent summer with a heatwave, via subtropical Auckland and the surrounding warmer areas.
I start to feel very keen to get home. Not before some amazing activities with my brother, but ready nevertheless. I want to hold my partner.
However, we were still on the South Island and the water beckoned us today. First, for a whale watch cruise. Then, for a night ferry back to Wellington.
…so, shall we?
Now, if Jon is good at anything. It’s being this trip’s ultimate dad. The schedule runs like clockwork, and then some. As such, after my call ended Jon diligently told me (as he had for a few days) that we had to make sure we were there 60 minutes before departure.
So, there we were, sad and lonely as we watched a repeating loop of a Blue Planet episode just the two of us because, as it happened to be written in the email…
…we were early. Very early in fact. People didn’t turn up for another 45 minutes and then there was even more wait time before boarding. But!!! We definitely didn’t miss it.
#DadJon
The cruise itself was unreal. We sped out across the shallow water until we reached the underwater canyon that makes Kaikōura such a wildlife hot-spot. Three currents across various temperatures flow through this canyon, bringing with it sharks, occasionally Orcas, seals and sealions, and, most importantly, Sperm Whales.
Once we’d passed the shelf, it actually took an incredibly short amount of time to scout the sounds of a nearby whale. But, not before every tourist in existence smashed and pushed in front of me, some knocking my camera. The highlights included a woman who would snap a single photo of an animal then just sit on TikTok and scroll or edit her own TikTok that contained no shots of any animals, but many shots of her being on the boat. In fact, that was the case for a lot of people, elderly Mandarin speaking tourists, couples, the TikTokker, and I’d never seen anything like it before. It was more important to photo yourself being on the boat than anything we’d all paid to be on the boat for.
Either way, tourists or no, I got the last laugh. Turns out, I have pretty decent sea legs. Ever wondered what 30+ people on a slip n’ slide would look like. It’s the fear that grips these selfie takers as they cling to a rail and remember they’re on a boat in the Pacific Ocean.
ANYWAY, TO THE ANIMALS.
The first highlights were seeing several species of Albatross, including a few Royals, which are huge. Then, as we started tracking our whale, we saw a Sealion (I don’t know which) flipping about looking for food, followed in the distance by some ANZ Dolphins.
…and nearby, the long fin of a Blue Shark swam by as it milled about on the prowl.
This was already incredible. That’s a hell of a lot of species for a 2 hour cruise!
Then we heard the call, “hold on, folks, we’ve found him surfacing.” Off we sped, bouncing over the waves, then once where we needed to be, everything stopped. Silence. Just lapping water under the boat. Then…
*pffft** and a geyser of water blew into the air.
A huge Sperm Whale had surfaced and was swimming less than 30m from us. It got so close at one point, you could see the unique ridges that ran over its head. It’s hard to believe that people killed these animals in droves just for their oil (contained in their head, giving Sperm Whales their shape). Some places still do. That barbarism makes my skin crawl.
But, enough of that, more pictures I hear you cry! (There will be many more. This was just a DSLR heavy day)
Just as the Sperm Whale dived and we waited for it surface again, we got our final piece of insane, gods-tier luck. Not one Orca, not even two, but a pod. A father, mother, and a calf (who had a love for twirling and spinning on the surface of the water as it swam next to its mother.
Seeing wild Orcas and them so peacefully checking out the boat and feeling okay and having no need for defence or aggression (which would have been on us not them) was non-existent.
I just found 3 more reasons why SeaWorld should fall into the sea…
As we wrapped up, we caught baby fur seals on the rocks hopping about, the Dolphins came leaping back again (endemic to ANZ), and the Sperm Whale resurfaced. So, by the end of the cruise, in 2 hours, 20 minutes, we’d seen various Albatross, a Blue Shark, baby ANZ Fur Seals, several Sealion, a family of Orcas and a Sperm Whale. As the First Mate Jack said, “You guys have been uncannily lucky today!“
It was beautiful. Thank you, yet again, Aotearoa.
We lunched separately, Jon, deservedly, needed to sleep off yesterday, so I sat and grabbed some more incredible chips. It’s a strange experience, though, revisiting places from the tour. I felt very lonely. Between missing my partner and missing my Fellowship. A feeling it would turn out that wouldn’t shift.
Then we drove a few hours in the most gorgeous weather to Picton and the ferry, as shown below:
DadJon struck another victory as we arrived 45 minutes ahead of the minimum arrival. Not that it mattered as checking in to actually getting on the ferry took over 2 hours. We were ready to claw our eyeballs out by the tome we made our way to recliners on Deck 7.
Now, it’s raining, and I don’t mean a bit a drizzle. I mean, it’s f*ckin raining. The Captain told us all it was to be a damn choppy crossing through the Queen Charlotte Sound, across the very bad Cook Strait, and into Wellington Bay.
A storm had arrived.
Now, remember what I said about my having sea-legs? Well, Jon didn’t get quite the same luck. If you’ve been here from the get-go (thank you), you’ll know that last time we were on the ferry, Jon looked a bit green, even when it was relatively calm.
Well, Jon was borderline jaundiced for this voyage. So much so that he was VERY ill on the way. Bless him. DadJon is the one, I think. Cpt. Jon may have to wait in the wings.
After a choppy few hours, we were back in Wellington and drove to our campsite in Paraparaumu, 40 minutes north. We had covered almost 75% of Aotearoa New Zealand in just 2 days. But, our last gift from the gods was parking our van in a very beautiful beachfront freedom (camping) car park… in a storm… with 30+kph winds hitting us side on. Great. More rocking.
And never the good kind.
Goodniiiiiiight!
– Jake,
25 May 2024
P.S. Jon is also writing about his version of events over on his Tumblr page, Misplaced Midlanders! Check it out!
The Long Expected Journey 