Blue Seas Motel Kaikoura

... of the cancelled whale watching. <br>Next stop was in Blenheim, one the the big wine producing areas of New Zealand. We popped into the Cloudy Bay vineyard for a tasting session, luckily Jason was driving by this point so whilst he had to spit his out I didnt ;-). We bought a bottle of trusted sauvignon blanc for consumption on our last night and completed our drive to Picton where we were due to get the ferry the next night up to the north island.<br><br>

... no shoes, a cigarette casually dangling<br>from his mouth, and a full-blown prosthetic leg&#8212;if Ahab were a<br>modern Kiwi&#8212;this was definitely him!<br><br>Nick, (Kiwi Ahab) instructs us to<br>follow him down the road behind the farming tractor that is pulling<br>the boat to the bay. When we arrive a few minutes later we meet up<br>with two other Kiwi couples on holiday who will be joining us on the<br>fishing expedition as well as another ...

... by the beach and surrounded by mountains. It was very pretty. We went to ask about whale watching and they told us the waves are too high. So we checked into a hostel, went to the supermarket, made some dinner and played with the incredibly fluffy cat., hoping that we can go whale watching tomorrow.<br><br>The next day we checked out and drove down to the penninsula, where we admired the sleeping seals. We walked up to a viewpoint on the top of a cliff, where we had a fabulous ...

... underwater in order to determine the location &amp; depth of the sperm whales. It was only about 30 minutes into the trip when we began racing towards our first whale. Sperm whales are the fourth largest whales in the ocean &amp; the area that we were in had only adolescent males passing through.<br><br>We spotted the whale shooting water out of his blow hole before we saw his body mass. It was so incredible to be just 30m away from something ...

... which was just amazing - still one of my favourite places in NZ, there are hundreds of undeveloped, remote bays with golden yellow sand, which changes into a red colour when it gets wet from the waves, and then the turquoise sea - it takes your breath away. We took a boat trip there and did a little walk through the bush to the deserted beaches and saw some seals. Next we did a long drive down the West Coast of the South Island - which was really rugged but the rain was coming in ...

... s house which was nearby and wanted to improve his English. We talked to him for a while, and it was pretty fun. Then, we talked to a few men who were homeless named Bruce and Harry. I also met another homeless man earlier named Tutu who was playing his recorder on the street trying to make money. I also spoke with a woman named Valerie who was in the homeless ...

Its now less than 48 hours until I leave Christchurch and there is still quite a bit to do - mainly little things like get a book to read on the plane (limiting myself to one is going to be a struggle and I have a strong suspicion that I will end up with two at the least!) or buying a calling card, but some not so small like making that payment to the IRD... Why then am I mucking around on this blog? Well as ...

... all three of us. "Tomorrow" I said. "No, now" Khalid said. I decided that the next option was to borrow a pair of pliers from the service counter and somehow force it open. For Khalid, the $7 shampoo and having his hair washed was more urgent than ruining and mending the zip on his trousers. I approached the service counter, explained the problem and asked for pliers. A big lady at the counter looked excited at the problem and said, "Yep, I have a few kids and ...

... not so good at playing map girl. However... maybe it was fate because we were almost on the right track when we heard an almighty bang and a vicious scraping noise as we drove another few metres. Like if this happened on the highway, we wouldn't have been able to stop and would have been miles away from Christchurch. Pulled in at the next safest place, got out to inspect and it turns out, our spare tyre had fallen out a couple of yards back and the scraping noise was ...

... rolling around and sunning themselves in order to get dry after their time in the sea. <br><br>Some of them were really cute, you just had to make sure you didn't get between them &amp; the sea, otherwise they feel cut-off ...