Did You Ever See a Whale With a Polka Dotted Tail?

Second post...same day...wow. Feast or famine, eh?

When I first started to research different adventures to partake of while I was in New Zealand, one of the earliest things to go down on the "To Do" list was whale watching. Also early on the list was to take the train (an ode to Europe, I suppose). I combined them into one trek from June 24 - June 26.

Again, I had travel companions, which was cool! When I mentioned the details of my trip, Wes and Camille decided to come with me. Maybe I'm a different person than I was two years ago when I traveled all around Europe by myself, but having other people along make trips so much more fun!

The first leg of the trip was to catch a flight out of Wellington to Christchurch (located on the South Island) on Thursday night. Camille and Wes were on a different plane than I was, but in a nice change of schedule their plane which was originally supposed to take off about an hour before mine was only left fifteen minutes before mine. Worked nicely! I'm not much of one for flying, but that particular flight was made brighter by Wes lending me his MP3 player ("you're going to be all alone") so I could listen to Jim Gaffigan (comedian). Chuckling helps!

We got in to Christchurch somewhat late, but checked into our hostel and headed out to explore anyways. The night scene at Christchurch is interesting -- more lively than that at either Picton or Nelson (though nothing could compare to all the ruckus of Courtenay Place right outside of our apartment in Wellington -- it never stops there). I was hungry, and KFC was open. Generally speaking, I feel like a sell out when I buy fast food (especially American-based fast food when abroad), but it was delicious.

I didn't sleep much that night. One of the joys of hostels is the mixture of people in one's room. At about two in the morning, one of the women in my room had some sort of a personal crisis. It was an early morning, as well, for we had to be at the train station at about six thirty.

Camille and Wes were in a different booth on the train, and I ended up next to two Kiwi men. At first, I was hesitant and anti-social, opting to listen to music on my headphones rather than interact. When the sun started to come up and illuminate the landscape around me, I couldn't help but turn off my music and comment on how much I enjoyed it. "I can see that, I think," said the man sitting across from me (what the heck, I'll just call him "Red"). I can imagine the little grin I must have had on my face as I absorbed my surroundings. I was told by an Italian man in Rome that I "grin like the cat that catches the mouse," and that kind of satisfaction must have been evident on my face.

I never learned the names of those men, nor did they learn mine. But that didn't stop one of them from buying all three of us a cup of coffee, or discussion about who we were, where we were from. Red might as well have been an uncle or older cousin. I liked him immensely - sharp witted, kind, but teasing. The man directly next to me, by the window, was also nice, if a bit odd. Three strangers on a train, sharing coffee, gummy worms, and granola bars. I don't know why, but it is one of the moments from this summer that I will always remember.

After what seemed like no time at all, the train rolled into Kaikoura (Maori for "Eat Prawns"), which was to be the base for our whale watching excursion. Camille, Wes, and I walked off the train and were privy to one of the most magnificent views I have ever encountered. As usual, the picture does not do the moment justice. The mountains and sea, two titans, lived confidently side by side. The shoreline was composed of millions of rocks, well rounded from the incessant force of the sea. The sound as those waves came ashore was powerful, like a lion's roar. There has been many an occasion where if I stopped to listen I found myself in the middle of a natural symphony, and that was one of them.

Kaikoura itself is not a large town, but man is it a long one. It figures that the train station and our hostel would be on opposite ends of it. We walked for roughly an hour to find the hostel to get checked in a drop off our gear, and then back to the train station again (which doubled as the check-in for the Whale Watch trip). It was a good walk, though. Good walk with new friends. :)

I was quite nervous about the boat part of the whale watching trip (an essential part, unless one is a very good swimmer). There was a "seasickness warning" posted up on the screen at the check-in station for the trip, and I expected myself to be prone to motion sickness. Another large part of it, I think, is that I just am so unfamiliar with the ocean. It is so vast and intimidating to me. After a quick safety lesson, though, we were off to try and track down some whales (sometimes they can't find any, which would have really popped my balloon!!).

Proudly I can say that I did not get sick, though I can understand why there was a warning. It was very rough out there (as we would go over some of the bigger waves, my stomach would drop more than once), but it was pretty fun for me. Fun enough for me to giggle about it. Quickly enough, a whale was spotted! The captain, I think, saw that spout/fountain thing that happens when they breathe. I wasn't sure how it would work out to catch it, because when they announced that they had seen a whale, they said it was about a mile off. However, I didn't realize that whales will stay at the surface for a good ten minutes before diving again in order to re oxygenate. They got the boat up quite close to the whales (two sperm whales) we saw that day, which was awesome. Once again, I was amazed by the presence of an aquatic animal and just thinking about how it could live underwater. Plus, they were both huge!

As we ended the trip (about three hours long) they steered the boat out to a fur seal colony, which was neat! Doesn't it look eerie in the mist like that?

So, I saw whales! That night, we ate pizza (must be a travelling thing), and watched Whale Rider (a Kiwi movie). I think there was another movie in there as well, but I was kind of falling asleep by then.

We got the train back to Picton in the morning (walked all the way through Kaikoura in sideways rain...bummer), and that was uneventful other than meeting Siri from Norway (I think she sat next to or across from Wes, who was in a different part of the train from Camille and myself). She was on the ferry that we ended up switching to because we didn't want to be stuck in Picton all day (I had booked this trip before the trip we all had taken the weekend before, and so we had already seen Picton).

While on the ferry, Wes and I decided to use the Sharpies he always has on him to make somebody's unfortunate sea sickness circumstances a bit more entertaining...Custom designed barf bags!

All of us (including Siri) enjoyed some chicken fajitas that night at our place, and if I remember correctly Toy Story 2 was on TV (just a heads up, you don't have to worry about me nurturing my inner child any time soon...it's well fed and rambunctious). A nice ending to a great weekend!

More to catch up on, but I'm getting there slowly but surely!

Gracie