Kia ora New Zealand - Kaikoura

Kia ora means hello in Maori! ((-:

New Zealand greeted us on Wednesday afternoon with three days of non-stop rain. 🙈 We mainly used this time to relax, sleep in, put our feet up, and explore Christchurch a bit. From our centrally located hotel, we visited Quake City, a museum about the devastating earthquake in February 2011, and explored the city which is still under construction. Worth mentioning are the 185 empty white chairs that were installed in memory of the earthquake victims.

On Friday, we picked up our mobile home for the next four weeks and headed straight to Kaikoura (about 200km north of Christchurch) where Flo wanted to fulfill another dream: seeing a whale. Whale Watching was scheduled for Saturday but had to be canceled because the whales didn't want to show up that day. Instead, we embarked on the Coastal Walk. During the approximately two-hour hike along the coast, we saw wild seals playing in the water or simply relaxing in the sun on land.

The evening at the campsite (right on the black beach) was super relaxed - with amazing colors from the sunset, of which Flo had to take about 47 photos. But it was really beautiful! ((-:

The next morning, the rescheduled Whale Watching Tour was scheduled for 8:15 am. A bit excited, we boarded the boat and after about 45 minutes, it finally happened: a minimum 12m long sperm whale surfaced right in front of our boat. Unbelievable! On the surface, "Ti Raki" (that was the name of the colleague) stayed for about 10-15 minutes to breathe before diving again.. showing its tail fin. An incredible moment! Sperm whales dive for 45-60 minutes before resurfacing to breathe. On the rest of the tour, we were denied another whale but we saw many dolphins swimming and playing around our boat and numerous albatrosses. We don't know who of you knows "Bernhard and Bianca in Känguruland", but albatrosses actually run several meters over the water before taking off. Amazing to watch, such powerful animals.. as they glide majestically through the air with their wingspan of up to 3.5m and elegantly glide about 4cm above the water surface. A very successful tour!! 😃

With the best weather, we drove to Timaru (south of Christchurch), where we camped wild on a beach. In a nice conversation with a local, we learned that you can observe penguins nesting not far from us. We immediately started walking and in the twilight, we actually saw the smallest penguins (Blue Penguins) waddle from the water over the beach to their nests between the stones. Insight at this point: Penguins are much faster than turtles. 😉

It was a special day that was very "animal-rich"..we fell asleep happily and contentedly with the sound of the sea.