WE STARTED OUT EARLY FOR OUR DRIVE from Taupo to Wellington. It seems where ever we’re going the British Lions Tour fans are going as well.
We broke up our 6-hour drive and stopped for lunch in a small town.
“Do you think you have a chance?” some dude asked Jon.
“Uh, what?”
“Jon you’re wearing a British Lions T-shirt,” I nudged him.
“Oh, I don’t know?” Jon answered confused.
The New Zealand All Blacks fan walked away.
“Ok Jon, if your gonna wear the shirt you need to at least say something, or at least tell them your American and just bought the shirt.”
The British Lions Tour here in New Zealand is a huge affair and the country is absolutely swarming with British folk, touring around in campers and cars and whatever else will get them to the games. Many campers have signs posted on them rooting for the Lions, every store and shop has some kind of Tour paraphernalia for sale, street signs have been altered, and parties have begun. And of course since right now is the off-season for tourism in New Zealand and the majority of the tourists here right now are for the Lions Tour, everyone assumes we’re British.
We spent just one night in the outskirts of Wellington along with the entire mass of Lions Fans. There was a big game in Wellington that evening and as we sat in our camper van and made dinner, we were surrounded by hundreds of empty campers, as everyone was off for the game.
“Not going to the game?” asked the park security man, doing his rounds.
“No, were American,” Jon, told him.
“Well you can come over and watch the game in the TV room later.”
“OK.”
A cold rain began falling in the deserted Holiday Park, and Jon ran over to watch rugby on the TV. The security guard sat with Jon explaining the game as I read a year old Australian Elle magazine.
THE RUGBY FANS HAD TO GET TO THE SOUTH ISLAND the next day as did we and only because I booked our ferry crossing in advance was I able to get a spot aboard. As we sat in the queue of cars waiting to enter the car park of the ferry, several blokes began spontaneous rugby tossing games, pumped up rugby fans cheered things back and forth at each other and scalpers roamed between campers selling tickets to the big game in Christchurch for $500.
The ferry crossing took a bit over 3 hours and as we drove off the ferry onto the South Island we were alone again. The Lions fans needed to be in Dunedin some 700 Km to the south in a matter of a few days and Picton was way to far North for them to be stopping now.
Picton seemed a sleepy little town, where fog gets trapped in the nooks of the hills and lingers there all day. We stayed over one night in Picton before heading a bit father south to Kaikoura.
WE TOOK THE COAST SOUTH AND A LITTLE BIT outside Kaikoura we came across a seal colony. We pulled over to the side of the road and hopped outside to check them out. Before you see seals and sea lions you can defiantly smell them. It’s not because they are dirty creatures, it’s from the way they process the salt from the salt water they drink.
Next we stopped at the gas station on the way into town and as Jon filled us up, I called Whale Watch Kaikoura to book us on a tour for the next day.
“We have 4 spaces left,” the Whale Watch operator told me.
“Ok, well sign us up.”
Kaikoura is whale watching central of New Zealand and it was imperative we see some whales while here.
We easily found a Holiday Park and transformed our camper into home. This was one of the first Holiday Parks we had been to that was right in the town center, easy walking right into town.
Kaikoura had all kinds of cute little shops and restaurants, most specializing in Crayfish, Lobster to us North Americans. They even had a town cat.
After our Crayfish lunch we stopped in a coffee shop, grabbed two cappuccinos and spent the rest of the evening keeping warm and listening to the sounds of the rough sea at our backdoor.
“GOOD AFTERNOON AND WELCOME to Whale Watch Kaikoura,” said the woman behind the counter.
“Hi we have reservations for a tour.”
“Ok, I just want to let you know we have a sea sickness warning, the swells today are about 3 meters. So if you think you may get sick we sell tablets.”
We had a few minutes before the tour actually started so we walked out onto the beach, to check out the huge waves. The waves were coming in full force and breaking right on the beach in huge pipeline fashion. The sea shelf must have been quite deep a few feet off the beach and when the waves hit the beach…CRASH!
It was time to go. We were shuttled to a boat waiting in the bay right outside of town. Again we were given a seasick warning.
“There are barf bags on the backs of the seats in front of you is you need them,” said Chevy our Whale master. “Please keep you seats while we are traveling and when we spot a whale we’ll send everyone out on the deck.
The boat was a super fast modern boat and we were traveling so fast that we hit the huge waves and Miami Vice jumped them, coming down hard on the water…BAM! We got a good distance off shore and the Capitan stopped the boat.
“He’s going to use the Hydrophone to listen for some whales,” Chevy told us.
The Capitan stuck the long pole with the microphone head into the water and listened for whale noises through his headphones. He heard some and we were speeding away towards them in seconds.
TWO HUGE SPERM WHALES floated along the top of the water surface feeding, chasing fish and sharks. We watched as the two, presumably male whales glided along the water, blowing a wet misty air from their blowholes.
“”This is more a feeding ground here rather then a breeding ground. The waters here are just too cold for female Sperm whales. So the males hang out here feeding themselves so they can get nice and strong before heading towards warmer waters to mate,” Chevy explained.
We continued to watch in complete awe; so rare was it to see two whales right in the same place.
“We’re getting a real treat,” Chevy smiled. “Ok get ready here he goes, he’s gonna dive, he’s flipping and here comes the tail, out of the water up, up, up and dive. Wow that was fantastic! Ok here goes the other guy now, see his fluke come up and…. dive.” Chevy was so enthusiastic about the whales that even if you weren’t already impressed with the huge mammals you would be, listening to his commentary.
We piled back into the interior of the boat and sped off in another direction towards another possible whale sighting. Sure enough we found another whale there. He too was surface feeding, but was close to being finished and with a deep breath he flipped his fluke out of the water and dove down into the deep.
We sped off once again now joined by another Whale Watch ship that was in constant communication with our ship about possible whale sightings. Off in the distance a spout was spotted. Zoom…we hauled ass across the waves, up, crash down, up crash down again. We were really speeding off for this guy.
The Capitan stopped the boat and walked out on deck to use the hydrophone again. Ah, we were close. The whale had gone down for the moment but he would soon be back up. Suddenly, the whale popped up directly next to our vessel.
“Humpppfff,” the whale was so close we heard him sigh.
He stuck around right by the side of the boat, popping his head up and looking around at us. He was curious about us for a bit, but defiantly had more important things to do then to sit around looking at tourists all day. He swam away into the distance and flip, his tail fluke popped into the water.
See a video of a whale diving herfe.
OUR TOUR HAD A MONEY BACK GUARANTEE that if we didn’t see any whales we would be refunded 80% of our tour price. We defiantly had seen our share of whales for the day!
As we sped back towards the bay Chevy explained some things about the whales.
“Whales have an amazing system to help them dive and to help them stay buoyant. The whales have oil reservoirs in their bodies, that cool as they dive, and turns into wax to help them get down. When they want to come back up, the wax is heated and changed back into oil and, what does oil do in water? It floats.” Chevy explained. “So do you know how the Sperm Whale got its name?” everyone shook their heads. “Well when people first started killing these whales, they would cut into the foreheads and out would come 2 tons of this sticky white fluid. So they thought this was sperm. But when they began killing the females as well, they would cut into their foreheads and the same white substance would come out.”
Another crewmember brought out a petition to Stop Whaling and Chevy passed it around.
“There are still 27 nations that allow whaling, the 3 biggest being Japan, Russia and Norway. Some use them as food, while some are still killed for oil and some are killed under the guise of scientific research. Others are killed from being run over by boats and many whales and other sonar using marine mammals are being hurt and killed by naval sonar devices.”
The “Save the Whales” theme has been a popular bumper sticker for a long time, but recently NZ and Australia have taken up the fight more seriously and have began petitioning the Japanese government to stop and ban all whaling. Their efforts haven’t paid off yet, but it’s quite evident in New Zealand, that they are quite serious about saving whales, not just in their beautiful waters, but in all the waters of this planet, so future generations can experience the majesty of these huge animals that share a common bond with man and all mammals alike.
New Zealands campaign to stop whaling in Japan.
you can see all our pictures of Kaikoura and Whale Watching in the New Zealand Photo Album.
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