Tag 144 "Whales instead of hiking"

The night was clear again and we were once again amazed by the countless stars. This naturally invites philosophical thoughts: 'somewhere out there, people are also looking at the starry sky from their car' or 'the universe can't possibly be infinite' and so on...

The original goal was the Franz Josef Glacier and Fox Glacier. The route was clear - or so we thought. The weather for the next few days looked anything but great, let alone acceptable. Rain, rain, and cold. Not ideal for hiking and 👀. So we had to change our plans - instead of driving south along the west coast, we took the Lewis Pass and drove to the east coast. We knew that this would be the end of our journey in about 3 weeks, but true to the motto 'the last shall be first', we made a spontaneous decision. The whales were waiting for us in Kaikoura. Whale watching was on the agenda. This area is known for its excellent whale watching opportunities because there is an underwater canyon just off the coast of the small unassuming coastal town. 1 km from the beach, it drops down 1000m vertically. It can go as deep as 3000m. It sounds incredibly unbelievable. With a little something to combat strong motion sickness 🤮, the drive of almost 4 hours was considerably more relaxed. We saw two sperm whales (they actually look like giant sperm cells 😉🤣), a blue shark, three blue penguins, dozens of seals and their babies, and many different species of dolphins through our camera lens. They were all worth the money several times over!!

With R.2.0, we continued south from Christchurch, where we found a nice spot by the lake to sleep.