Kaikoura--Wildlife Paradise

Our trip to Kaikoura, our first stop on the east coast of the South Island of New Zealand, started off great when our bus driver (for Atomic Shuttles) stopped off at an area just before the town where there were loads of seals lounging around on the rocks... and little baby seals bouncing around in the water! They were adorable, but apparently only from a long way away--our bus driver told us that if we got too close, the mothers would attack and we wouldn't really be enjoying the rest of our trip.

Anyway, the next day, we went on a dolphin swim, which was the reason we stopped in at Kaikoura. The swim was absolutely amazing and definitely one of the highlights of my entire abroad experience. It's great to tell people about how you swam with a pod of 300 dolphins. The three-and-a-bit-hour trip was worth every penny we paid for it; no wonder it books up so far in advance.

If you're travelling in the South Island, I'd at least drop in at Kaikoura--and if swimming in a freezing ocean isn't quite your cup of tea, there is always seal watching (and seal swimming, although apparently the dolphins are more playful/interesting) and whale watching. There's so much wildlife in the area because there is a big deep-water trench that is very close to the coast at the peninsula in Kaikoura. So while all the tours don't guarantee that you'll get to see the wildlife, since they make sure not to disrupt the wildlife's natural patterns, etc., there is a good chance you will because there is so much around.

The town itself is rather small, but cute, with a main street going parallel to the Pacific and the beach, even though the beach is a bit rocky and the water is very cold (I was cold even in a wetsuit, in the summer). So, there's not a whole lot to do other than the wildlife watching, but that provided plenty for us!

Quick Tips:

I would recommend booking any activities here well in advance because the dolphin swim was totally packed for every session the day we were there, and apparently fills up very far in advance. I'm not exactly sure how long, we booked at least 3 months prior. I'd also make sure that, whatever you are doing, you have at least two waterproof cameras or one very good waterproof digital camera case.

Best Way To Get Around:

I really liked Atomic Shuttles, a bus service on the South Island, which got us to Kaikoura for very cheap (I can't remember exactly, but something in the range of for three people). It was a lot cheaper to ride the shuttles than it was to ride the train from Picton, and plus, we got the added advantage of having a driver and a small number of people, so we got all sorts of local stories.

The train service out of Kaikoura, to Christchurch, was alright, but was much more expensive than the shuttle and I wouldn't recommend the food at all.

In Kaikoura itself, you can walk everywhere--from the Dolphin swim at one end of town to the Paua wholesale store and the train station/whale watching station at the other. It's all one strip and there's pretty much no other way to go, since the town's too small for a bus service.

This hostel was a very nice, very small backpackers' hostel located just up a very large set of stairs from the main street in Kaikoura. It was pretty easy to find--we got dropped off at the bus stop, and there was a sign for Topspot that pointed up the hill. The owners of the hostel lived in the building right next to the actual house that was the hostel, so it was obviously very small and contained. Upstairs there was a good lounge room with a TV and (FREE!) Internet access, provided you could stand waiting in line for it. We actually had to use our sleeping bags at this hostel since they didn't provide bed linens, but since we had them with us, that wasn't a big issue. I was a bit worried about bedbugs since they tend to appear on beds that have had a lot of sleeping bags on them, but that wasn't an issue at all.

The owner was very nice and gave us good instructions--our only minor issue was that since you cannot book online directly with the hostel, we didn't have the correct voucher that the place we booked through in Christchurch said they would send on for us. Since we hadn't been to Christchurch yet, there was no way we could have picked up this voucher, but the manager said he would take care of it with the booking place and we never heard anything more about it.

It has nothing to do with the stay, but I would have liked them to have a website, because it would have made booking much less of a hassle. They also let us keep our stuff in the room after we had checked out so we could go do our dolphin swim without carrying around our backpacks, which was very convenient. I definitely enjoyed the much calmer pace this hostel had, rather than the hustle and bustle of a larger city backpackers' hostel. Also, it was just down the hill and then 800m to the dolphin swim--probably the closest backpackers' accommodation in town to the new dolphin-swim place.

When we arrived in Kaikoura around 8pm, without any food to our name, we didn't expect to be eating much for dinner. All of the cheap takeaway restaurants in town had obviously been closed for at least a few hours, and many of the restaurants were either closed or looked like they were in the process of closing as well, which made sense, since Kaikoura is a rather small town and it wasn't exactly bustling at this time of night.

After making our way down the main street, all the way to the train station (just to see what was there), we ambled our way back and found that the Adelphi bar and restaurant was open. The Adelphi is very hard to miss, since it has "The Adelphi" written down the side of the main building in large letters. It is a hotel and backpackers, which made the scene in the bar that much more odd—there were probably five or six other people in the entire place, including the people that worked there, which we found very odd for a bar connected to backpackers.

We ordered a pizza between us and it got to us rather quickly. I expect we would have been rather disappointed in the service otherwise. It was quite a good pizza and really not expensive—NZ$12 between the two of us. We enjoyed being able to sit in peace, watching the two other patrons of the bar playing a game of pool in the center. The layout of the place was really nice in this way—the tables were around the outer ring of the restaurant, so everyone could have some entertainment in the pool games and such during their dinner.

The restaurant was very clean, as was the bar area that we waited at for our food. The whole place was in general much different to any bar I had been in previously, in that it was nearly spotless and smoke free. It could have just been spotless since the bar staff were getting ready to go home, but I didn't get that impression. We weren't actually ushered out the door by said bar staff, but they made it very clear, without being rude or pushy in any way, by putting chairs on tables and such that it was time for the restaurant to close (around 10pm). Overall, a very nice place to eat, although slightly lacking in atmosphere late on a Thursday night. I expect it would have been slightly louder, with a few more people, on a Friday or Saturday night, but I can't say that for sure as we were gone by the next evening.

Amazing, amazing, amazing. That was the one word that we kept repeating over and over again after going on the Dolphin Encounter. It was absolutely... well, amazing. I've never experienced anything like it before.

You start off getting into a wetsuit (which can be a task in itself), and then having a short orientation about what to do and what not to do when you are in the water. Then you get on a bus for a short ride, and then onto the boat. In our case, once we got on the boat, we were in for a 15-minute ride through the thick fog, every once in a while with the guide shouting, "Oh look, an albatross!" When we eventually found our spot (and the other boat), we weren't even too far from land (which, I would find out later, was a very good thing).

Then, we fitted our snorkels and masks on, and the boat blew its horn, and we were off. I don't know which was more hilarious--watching the dolphins themselves, or the people that were swimming with them. They told us that if we dove deep into the water or sang to the dolphins that they would be more likely to play with us. So if you're on the boat, you see a bunch of idiots floundering around singing "Dooooo yoooooooou speeeeeeeaaaaaak dollllllllphiiiiiiiin" through their snorkels. Haha.

We got to jump out of the boat at two or three different places when the pod of dolphins was coming towards us and then swim around while 300 or so dolphins swam around us, and in some cases, in quick circles around us until we got dizzy and had to stop. Nothing can really describe that feeling.

Afterwards, while we were all basking in what we had just experienced, we got to sit on the boat and drink hot chocolate and watch the dolphins as they swam. My friend's advice: don't try to take pictures and drink hot chocolate at the same time on a boat. Cameras and hot drinks don't mix, and she didn't have a camera for the rest of New Zealand. No good. I found out at this point that me and small boats don't agree, but conveniently, they have buckets and very close land to stare at. That helped me out immensely and I managed to enjoy the dolphins, but not nearly as much as they were enjoying themselves.

When we got back to the Dolphin Encounter place we got a few free postcards and a $10 coupon for anything in the store, so of course we bought t shirts to show-off what we had just done. And when I say free, I mean it cost $115NZ, but again, worth every penny. My advice: BOOK IN ADVANCE. That's a must, because it fills up quickly and there was hardly any room for walk-ins on our day. But seriously, if IGoUGo had higher than "Very Highly Recommended," that's what I would rate the dolphin swim.

Southern Paua in Kaikoura is very eye-catching. You will see it if you are driving into town from the north (or coming in on the train, since it is just outside the train station underneath the rail bridge)—it is on the main road and one side of the building is painted like a paua shell. For those that haven't seen the wonder that is paua, it is a shellfish, in the same family as the abalone. However, it is much more colorful and only found in New Zealand because it is only there that the water is cold enough to form such amazing colors. The paua shell really is amazing because it can vary from green to purple to blue in all sorts of interesting patterns, and it also looks different when viewed from different angles. The Maori used this shell in their artwork, although it was not sacred like greenstone. You see it often as eyes for tikis and the like.This store had a huge selection of paua and definitely lived up to its advertising on the outside. Every wall is covered with paua jewelry of every description, from necklaces to earrings to bracelets. You can get it set in silver, gold, or on its own, and carved in all sorts of designs. The designs are often traditional Maori symbols, such as the whale tail (appropriate for Kaikoura) for good luck, the spiral "Koru" for growth and new life, the tiki, the fishhook, said to be the one that fished up the north Island from the sea (also a good luck symbol), and more. There is also a wide selection of carved bone and greenstone jewelry.The jewelry is all very reasonably priced, and was some of the cheapest that we had found so far without compromising quality. They had the typical brands found in places like Te Papa, while also having more handmade ones as well. The bone jewelry was also reasonably priced and within our price limit. However, Maori greenstone is much more expensive, since it is jade and normally have much cleaner designs. Along with jewelry, you can also buy paua mousepads, shells, and anything else you ever wanted! (I got a bookmark made of a thin paua shell). The staff were very helpful while also letting you have your space, meaning the lady working there didn't follow us around the store, but was very knowledgeable about everything she was selling. We spent a very long period of time just browsing in here, and could have spent longer had we not had a train to catch! If you want paua jewelry and are coming through Kaikoura, I would recommend buying here (I know we did) rather than buying at some of the bigger souvenir stores. Also, we didn't get to see it, but if you are interested and there at the right time, you can even see craftspeople at work creating much of what you find in the shop!