10/3/06 – To get this out of the way, it rained almost all day. Up early for a 7:30 pickup to go to Kaikoura for a whale watch. It was about a 2 ˝ hour drive north to the coast. We rode through a lot of sheep farms and the driver pointed out the new growth industry – wine. A lot of land had recently been planted in vines. Kaikoura is a quaint small town on a peninsula. It is rugged coastline with a backdrop of mount Kaikoura. We went out in a cool catamaran that was packed with high tech gear to find the whales and a guided talk showing our progress on a large plasma screen connected to the gps system. Very cool. We went out a few miles and almost as soon as we got over the continental shelf, where the depth changed from 300 feet to 5,000 feet we saw our first sperm whale. These are much larger animals than the humpbacks we saw in Hervey Bay, Australia. Unfortunately, they didn’t breach so we had to do with spouts and tails. But it was exciting. We tracked 5 different whales until they dove to feed. We also saw Dusky Dolphins and Wandering Albatross along with hundreds of sea birds. On the way back we went by a seal colony. Lunch in town, bought a couple of books at the used book store (we have read a lot of books while in travel mode), and then back on the bus. We stopped at a Winery with a fantastic ocean view and tasted their whites. Then, as we were leaving Kaikora we stopped at the seal colony and I got some great shots.
10/4/06 – Up early. Surprise, it is raining in Christchurch today. Well, after breakfast and checkout we board the Great Sights bus for our ride to Queenstown. We stopped at Mount Cook about halfway to Queenstown. Another surprise. As we entered the foothills on the way to Mount Cook, the skies cleared. As we stopped for a photo break at Lake McKenzie we had blue skies and puffy clouds. We arrived at Mt. Cook and Mike signed up for a helicopter ride up the valley and to the mountain. The ride lasted about a half hour but I enjoyed it. We stopped on a pile of snow and got out for photos and to see the snow. There were four Japanese tourists on my flight and everyone seemed to enjoy the feeling of being on the top of the world. Even though the mountain is only 12,000+ feet high, it seems higher. The receding glacier left a very visible trail down the valley and along the mountain walls. I met a woman who was going to camp in the mountains for the next few days and heli-ski. Apparently, this is a popular place for heli-skiing. There was a small village at the base of the mountain, but no ski area.
10/5/06 – Up early again. Not a cloud in the sky. Today we bus to Milford Sound, a fiord on the west coast. Along the way, winding our way through incredibly beautiful mountainous scenery we stopped at Te Anau, Eglington, where part of the Lord of the Rings movies was filmed, Mirror Lakes, Knobs Flat and ended up at the boat dock at Milford. There we boarded a large boat for a tour to the end of the fiord which is filled from the Tasman sea. Saw a small penguin on the shore and a sleeping seal along with a lot of waterfalls and views of the sound. Some of the folks took a plane or a helecopter back to Queenstown but Jan wouldn’t fly so we took the bus back.
10/6/06 – We had a free day in Queenstown today. We slept in until 7am (a luxury from the 5:30am starts the past few days. It was a beautiful spring day with a warm sun and cool air. We went downtown and walked around for an hour before our scheduled Jet Boat ride. We took the Shotover bus to the Shotover river launch site for the boats, got our life jacket and before we knew it we were in the boat. Jan was quite apprehensive about the whole idea but was a trooper. The ride was every bit exciting as advertised and we had a great time. I stayed after to shoot a few photos of another couple of boats. We then went back to town, found a great burger place, Ferg’s, and then rode the gondolas up the hill to get a great vista of Queenstown and lake Wakatipu. Tomorrow we travel to our last adventure, Franz Josheph Glacier.