Panoorin ang Balyena!

It's time again to send you some photos. The reason we haven't been posting as much lately is simply because there isn't much to report, as we are now fully in vacation and relaxation mode.

Nevertheless, we decided to make an unplanned detour to Kaikoura after our originally penultimate stop at Mount Cook, before heading to Christchurch.

And this detour was really worth it! Not only were we able to experience seals up close again, but we also got to admire other animals here.

We treated ourselves to a Whale Watching Tour. A pretty clichéd tourist activity, which wasn't cheap, but we definitely don't regret it.

As soon as you leave the coast with the boat, you can already experience various seabirds in their natural habitat and in a completely different way than on land. This includes the Royal Albatross, which we mentioned in a previous article, but now we were able to observe it much more intensively. With a wingspan of over three meters, it is an impressively large bird.

But we had actually gone out to sea to see a completely different animal. It didn't take long and the captain actually spotted a whale. Soon after, the huge animal surfaced and calmly replenished its oxygen supply. The true size of such a whale can only be appreciated in a photo when you include a reference object - like a bird, for example.

Since the whale showed up so early, the captain used our remaining time to search for dolphins. And we were lucky once again: Soon a curious school of dolphins approached, leaping out of the water and diving under the boat. Difficult to photograph, but there is still evidence: