Enroute to Kaikoura, we had a photo stop at a little lake for the views to Mount Cook. It is so depressing that the photos never come out as good as when you look at it! Nevermind, a mental image has been taken. Our destination town of Kaikoura is a little town famous for whale and dolphin watching or swimming expeditions. Situated on the rugged...

I had mixed feelings leaving Nelson on Sunday. Saturday night I had been out with Helen and Phil to a fund-raising quiz night organised by Phil's footy Team and joined them and the rest of the team in the pub later to watch the All Black thrash the French in the Rugby. Getting back to the hostel I shared a few drinks with some of the other long-...

Off to Kaikoura today to do some whale watching hopefully, so it meant we left Christchurch at 7am! Grrrreat! The drive there wasn't anything special after some of the journeys we've had but it was on time. We checked into the Lazy Shag (name of a bird apparently!) and then wandered on down to the whale office only to be told that it was cancell...

I only spent one day in Kaikoura as like with Christchurch i will be returning here for another day when i do the loop of the south island. Kaikoura is famous for its aquatic wild life, so i went out on a boat and did a spot of whale spotting. I managed to see two Sperm Wales which was pretty cool, especially when they did the "tail flick" as th...

First full day in Kaikoura.. we got up early to go shopping for our christmas dinner. Turkey, stuffing, yorkshire puddings, roast potatoes, carrots, peas, gravy, wine, christmas pudding... the works! Should be a good christmas although a bit wierd away from home. Went to hire bikes in the afternoon. Cycled up to the seal colony on the peninsula ...

After spending a few days mucking around in the mud on the farm we headed to Hamner Springs to bathe in the hot springs. Nina and Ric managed to join us this time and very soon after arriving we were all wrinkling up like prunes in the hot baths! After several hours of swapping pools ("this one is too hot" this one isn't hot enough") we decided ...

After another little go on the swings and slides, we made our way to the station. Historic station, if you please. It was very lovely and quaint, and now that I am writing about it, I wish that I had had the 'presence d'esprit' to take some photos. Unfortunately, we were far too laden with bags and prams for me to think of it. (I am sure you wil...

This sleepy little village is named as the first stop from Christchurch on all of the backpacker buses, famous for its abundance of sperm whales, fur seals, dolphins and cray fish among others. It made sense to follow suit so I booked the Intercity from Christchurch to Kaikoura and arrived at around 6 in the evening. I booked into a hostel calle...

Saw a load of whales out on a boat, was really cool, went out to a seal colony and stood about a foot away from an adult fur seal and its babies, was supposed to go swimming with dolphins but the weather got too bad so that got cancelled.

For the first time since we left Auckland, we were actually outside of the hostel ten minutes before the bus was due. Don't panic we hadn't suddenly become organised, there will be much more last minute checking out of hostels in future entries I'm sure, but today we wanted to sit at the front of the bus to make sure that we got the activities s...