Heading northwards

After a beautiful break in Wanaka and proving that I still can't play pool, I started my generally northerly direction to Mt Cook. I was lucky enough to see Mt Cook on a beautiful day. There is a village there with no supermarket, 130 residents and the only school in a National Park in NZ. The mountain itself is pretty hairy, it shrunk by 10m in the early 90s as a massive rock/ice fall meant a whole chunk off the top was lost. There is a quite a heavy Edmund Hillary influence here, as he climbed it and was associated strongly with the village.

The Village 

Unfortunately, all I did hear was walk and see how lovely a spot it is (it was actually really very hot, too), which was spectacular but I had really wanted to kayak on the lake there at the bottom of the Tasman Glacier but it was too windy! Very disappointed, but it has given me an excuse to come back (as if I need one).

What I didn't get to do...

From Mt Cook I went to Tekapo, which is a bit like Wanaka, although smaller, just a lovely place to be! More mountains, lakes and views. The night sky is also meant to be particularly impressive here, although I was looking at it with two people who now live in Shanghai, so they were a little more impressed having hardly seen a star since they were in the UK... There is also a famous church on the edge of the lake, the most photographed church in New Zealand, where lots of people return to to get married. When I was there, my photos were FULL of coaches of tours there to take pictures, they even stood around and photographed the wedding party that emerged from the church! There is a pretty amazing view from behind the altar though; it is quite a beautiful church.

Lots of photos....

Pretty spectacular view

It really is this turquoise, a result of the rock flour

Then from Tekapo I caught the bus up to Christchurch where I stayed with some family friends. They were very generous and live in a lovely house, which was a perfect antidote to buses and hostels. They also told me more about the earthquakes and pointed out where the city had looked different. It was really pretty sobering and shocking.

From Christchurch I also went to Akaroa, which is where a French community settled. As such, there are two centres to the small town, one where the French were, and one where the British were. There are lots of twee Frenchisms and all the roads have French names. It is a nice little seaside town but is famous for its beautiful surroundings and for having lots of the rarest and smallest dolphin, the Hector Dolphin. Unfortunately, due to the bad weather and my bad luck, it didn't look quite as spectacular as it normally does, I couldn't go on a trip to see the dolphins but if I had booked with the company I nearly did then I would have, oh those $2 were not worth it... However, another place to return to perhaps, and still a lovely little town. I have seen dolphins quite a lot before and I was on my way to Kaikoura, marine life central...

Kaikoura is particularly good for marine life due to there being a shelf where the sea floor drops from 100m to 900m and then continues to drop further. This is particularly good for sperm whales, amongst other things. This part of the south island, including around Akaroa and presumably further north as well, whilst in sight of mountains is a little more habitable and therefore the Maori had and have a stronger presence here than further south or west. In the 1980s they totally transformed the economy of the town by deciding to take advantage of the vast amount of marine life here. It is now a very nice coastal town, I've really quite enjoyed wandering around it.

Hector dolphins, hurrah!

The male Hector dolphin is much smaller than the female....

I saw this!

I didn't get this view...

I also, of course, felt I should try and see a whale. It was quite a slick operation, they have amazing ways of tracking whales. At first I was a bit annoyed that we were racing past albatrosses (yes, they were definitely albatrosses, despite looking a little gull-like) and dusky dolphins without commenting on them or pausing at all. After we saw the whale though, we then looked at the other sea life. They track the whale and find it in its ten minutes of getting rid of carbon dioxide etc. It just sits at the surface puffing, and we lie right alongside it and then get to watch it dive down, always with the tail flick. It was very exciting, but still not quite as cool as when whales have come up to us in the past, rather than going through a big rigmarole of finding them...  Also my enjoyment marginally tempered by the number of people vomiting in bags. HOWEVER, I should not complain, especially as we then saw lots of albatrosses and some Hector dolphins, the super rare and small ones! They are very close into shore and really very small. They also are much less showy that the Dusky ones, who were flirting and leaping, and are normally shy so we were lucky to see them, hurrah!

Still very excited by these

Enormous

Showing off dusky dolphins