Flight – Trouspinet travels

Today I drove up the east coast of New Zealand’s South Island from Christchurch to Kaikoura, a destination famous for its marine life. Around half way along the road, a sign offered a scenic drive around Gore Bay. It wasn’t in either of my guide books but I decided to give it a try, and was rewarded with one of those “off the beaten track” discoveries that makes travelling fun. After a bit of driving past some interestingly-shaped cliffs (the Cathedral Gully), a little path planted with sub-tropical flowers led from the road to the beach. I was almost the only one there, and took time to savour a moment of solitude.

Refreshed, I completed the rest of the day’s driving, checked into my hotel and spent the late afternoon wandering around Kaikoura’s wild peninsula, which was raised nearly two metres from the sea during a recent earthquake. There were views over the bay to far-off mountains……..

……lots of fur seals……

Lazy fur seals on the Kaikoura Peninsula

…and birds……

Kaikoura Peninsula – a black and white shag

….and wild scenery and cliffs.

My hike was probably only about 10km but walking on the pebbly shore and then up and down steep slopes was quite tiring. It was getting dark and cold when I reached my car, with evening approaching. I needed a good dinner to warm me up…….and found one on my way back home at “Cod and Crayfish”, a fish and chip shop on the main road going through the city. What New Zealander’s call a crayfish – in Maori, Koura – would be more often called a rock lobster in other parts of the world. Kaikoura (meaning “eat lobster” in Maori) is supposed to be the best place in New Zealand to taste some, so I enjoyed a feast of lobster and blue cod with chips for my dinner.

Although the walk around Kaikoura’s peninsula was nice, most people come here to venture onto the sea in search of whales and dolphins. I was no exception, and next morning I checked in for a whale-watching flight with Air Kaikoura. It is also possible to look for whales by boat, but I remembered my unsuccessful excursion in Iceland when I spent four hours on the sea only to see one small minka whale, so I opted for a shorter and (surprisingly) cheaper option. I set off from Akaroa airfield with a group of six other tourists plus the pilot in a small Cessna plane for a forty-minute flight.

Setting off to look for whales with Air Kaikoura

We all scanned the sea intently, faces pressed to the plane’s windows and cameras in hands or paws, but saw nothing. The pilot’s initially enthusiastic commentary and explanation about the lives of whales trailed off, and slowly people began to drop their arms and sit back in their seats. I looked at my watch – our forty minutes was up. I had resigned myself to yet another unsuccessful whale hunt, when suddenly…..

…..a blue whale appeared. The blue whale is the largest animal ever to inhabit the earth, and a truly amazing sight. Soon, two more blue whales appeared out of nowhere.

The pilot swooped down, circling so that each side of the plane could get a close look. He was visibly excited, and said that even he only saw blue whales once ever two or three weeks or so, and hardly ever three at once.

It was a wonderful experience watching these majestic animals making their way through the ocean, and ticked off one of my bucket-list items, that I thought I might never achieve. I don’t normally mention commercial enterprises in my blog, but I really have to say thanks here to Air Kaikoura for extending our flight by nearly half so that we could observe the whales properly. It was a fitting end to my stay in Kaikoura, and I set off on the long coastal road up to far north of the North Island in good spirits.

Next Post: The Marlborough Sounds and Abel Tasman Park

Previous Post: The Banks Peninsula, Akaroa and Dolphins

Today I made one last short walk in the Mount Cook area to the Tasman Glacier. An easy thirty minute stroll took me a viewpoint over the glacier’s lake where groups of tourists were being taken out on boat tours.

The glacier itself at the far end of the lake was a dirty gray colour; compared to my brilliant hikes of yesterday, today’s walk was rather disappointing, but at least the scenery around the lake was just as impressive as that which I had seen the day beforehand .

Soon it was time to head on to my next destination, Lake Tekapo. The road went back along the west bank of Lake Pukaki and then briefly along its south bank, where there was yet another great view of Mount Cook.

Mount Cook from the south shore of Lake Pukaki

Lake Tekapo was like so many of the other places I stayed in New Zealand – a sleepy small town located on a picturesque lake – in Lake Tekapo’s case the lake is fed by glacier water and is s striking light blue colour. On the lake shore stood the much-photographed and tiny Church of the Good Shepherd, built to commemorate the country’s early European settlers in 1935 (which makes it almost an ancient monument by New Zealand’s standards!).

Church of the Good Shepherd, Lake Tekapo

On the beach near the church, travellers had amused themselves building towers of rocks and pebbles to mark their passage, some of which were strikingly sophisticated.

After checking in to my bed and breakfast I set off for my main activity of the day – a 50-minute flight around Mount Cook and over the Franz Josef and Fox Glaciers.

The weather was perfect – sunny, no wind and a few clouds and soon I was in the air in a group of sixteen tourists admiring some amazing scenery.

Our route headed up over Lake Tekapo…

and then up a mostly dry river valley……

….lined with the foothills of the Mount Cook Range….

…to the glacial lakes I had seen on my previous walks in the area.

Glacial Lakes at the foot of the Mount Cook Range

Then the plane flew over the huge snow fields on the top of the high mountains….

….that feed three huge glaciers – the Tasman glacier (the longest), which flows east, and then the Franz Joseph and Fox glaciers which flow the other way, almost reaching New Zealand’s west coast (which was covered with cloud during my flight).

The starting point of the Fox and Franz-Joseph glaciers

Franz-Joseph glacier descending to the South Island’s west coast

Then we flew past Mount Tasman, New Zealand’s second highest peak…….

….before the pilot gave us a close up view of Mount Cook. It was a great way to remember the mountain that had followed me for the few two days.

I am only a week in to my New Zealand holiday but I think I can already confidently say that the flight will be one of the highlights. My only complaint was that it was over all too quickly, and we were soon touching down at Lake Tekapo airport to reconnect with normal life.

The day had one last adventure in store. I spent the rest of the afternoon sorting out the hundreds of photos I had taken from the flight, before having dinner in a local restaurant. Later that night I headed out again to enjoy the night sky. Lake Tekapo is part of a “dark sky reserve” where light pollution is kept to a minimum – even the town’s street lighting is specially designed to project light only downwards. The organisation Dark Sky Project offers nighttime trips to observatories out of town to see a night sky almost untainted by artificial light; I wanted to book a tour but I was too late and they had all sold out. So instead, I headed to the town’s golf course, parked my car and looked up to see the magnificent spectacle of the Southern Hemisphere night sky. To my surprise, I even manged to take a few photos with my phone.

The diamond-shaped Southern Cross and the Milky Way

Stargazing was a great way to end a memorable and very varied day.

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Tag: Flight

Kaikoura, lobster and my first blue whales

Yet More Aspects of Mount Cook