NZ Day 12 : Kaikoura

30/9/10 (Thurs) ...

This is it! My final day of travels in NZ. Sad as it is, I'm starting to miss my condo back in Setapak, or 'Set-A-Park' as those people in Ace Car Rental wrote in our registration form. 

At this point, I was also absolutely grateful that I hadn't fallen ill during my time there. I guess the lack of 'night-life' at the places I've been to had helped ensure I get enough rest at night. 

If anything, 2Ns in Christchurch is more than enough to see the best of it. Trust me. 

AND, unless you are an 80-year old ailing grandparent, WALKING is the best way to see Christchurch (instead of wasting your time waiting for the city tram, then hopping on and off it or trying to get the best shots from the tram).

I only realised this fact when I was in CC itself, and my itinerary (planned much earlier)  was actually to spend my final 3 nights in CC itself (not to mention my very first night in NZ was here too). Luckily we were able to make a little adjustment (to cut down the nights in CC) and still managed to arrange for our transportation.

Today I've planned for a Kaikoura day-trip. Well, less than a day actually since the last bus leaves Kaikoura at 4pm. But still, at least I get to check out this city well-known for its crayfish. What's that, you ask? Tell you more soon. 

But for now, we had to get up at 6am (my earliest yet!) to board the 7pm shuttle. Since the bus is not scheduled to pick us up from the hotel, we took a 30-min early morning breezy walk (in the dark) to its pickup point at Cathedral Square. Boy oh boy, the bus was eventually filled to the max. (Note : Traveling by bus is a cheaper way if you want to get to the North Island through a town called Picton and the whole jorney would take 5 hours). Our bus ride begins and along the route........I saw our hotel. @#XO!

It was gonna be a 3-hour long journey. No biggie, really. It'll be like driving from KL to Ipoh just to eat their famous chicken rice then coming back on the same day. Just that now, I'm going down to eat their famous crayfish! Yey!

Along the Main North Rd in a place called Papanui, the bus passed by an AXA office (that's my company's branch in NZ)!
After that, it was basically more greenery and small towns...passing by a town called Belfast (isn't that a city in Ireland?), then onto the highway (they call it the Motorway), then more towns named Amberley and Cheviot.

Was it my imagination or does this part of NZ has the most sheep?? They were everywhere, left and right...Boy, I'm gonna miss those furry darlings....I swear if they were smarter than humans, they would take over and rule NZ. Hasn't someone here already thought of filming a movie called 'Attack of the Killer Sheep'??

Inside the bus.
And the sleeping beauty who sat across from us. Yeah Mark, I noticed that you noticed.

This was what I was doing the entire time in the bus. No, not reading.

But writing.


 Come on, how else do you think I can write 95% of the things I've been writing here......

With approaching beaches, we finally reached Kaikoura!

They've got some really cool tunnels here.

As usual, we headed over to the friendly people of i-site to get some in-sight on the available activities for the 5 1/2 hours we have in Kaikoura.

Due to the time factor, we weren't able to join their whale-watching tours nor go swimming with the dolphins (not that I swim - I'll probably watch the dolphins swim instead). Hence, the only (sea) creatures we chose to spend time with that day were the seagulls (OK la, not that we had to purposely pay to see them... they were EVERYWHERE as soon as we alighted from the bus) and crayfish (need I stress on this more?!)

So, with a map in hand (that eventually was all crumpled and torn by the end of the day),  me and dear walked as far as the road (or our feet) could take us. We walked and walked and here's what we saw...

Our country can SO learn a thing or two from NZ. They are so into the conservation and preservation of nature. Recycle bins are everywhere in the towns and motels, even along the streets.

I imagine a person about to cross the street stopping short of what he is saying when he sees this sign, thus allowing another person to continue talking. 

I googled and think these lovely purple beauties are called Russell Lupins. What a name...Still, better than calling them Russell Brands.

Kaikoura beaches have tiny coarse, black sand, unlike the fine white sands of our beaches here.

Seasonal fishing for whitebait is allowed at certain parts of the sea.

As you can see, I'm dressed to withstand the chilly winds which can get pretty strong coz we were walking along the beach. Sometimes, too strong that I had to walk backwards to protect my already dried-up face from the cold wind.

This is me sneaking up on mr gull.

"Please dun rain....pleaseeeeee...."

Whenever we grew tired of walking, we took a rest wherever possible....

those were where our butts were sitting on

Dear with his game face, in case some stranger bullies me along the way.

Spectacular mountains in sight...

See the far end of the beach? That's where we're heading...no idea how far it actually turned out to be.

Somewhere along the way, we stumbled upon YHA Kaikoura. Feeling a bit sentimental since it was YHA, we went to check out the place.

There wasn't anyone inside, not even the receptionist.

Sea gulls perched on rocks.

'Any letter(s) at home?'

Houses like this are aplenty along the way....notice the seal sitting outside the house?

Me trying to keep my beanie from being blown off by the wind.

We've been walking more than 3kms now and boy, oh boy, what a workout.
Approached a huge corner and the view was magnificent!
Apart from only 2 people walking on what looked like a deserted road (that's us la), there was this other truck parked by the side.

 

It got quite creepy at times especially when I let my imagination run wild, thinking that we could easily be kidnapped or mugged by a passing car and nobody would help or even hear us...

Well, we were willing to take that chance rather than hitch-hiking a ride from one of those rare cars that drive by.

Nothing to shout about this beach. The signboard is more interesting. Wonder what happens to a dog on this beach between Nov and March.

Here we are looking back at our map, making sure we weren't just walking aimlessly.

I can't even begin to express the joy on our faces when we saw 2 kiosks in the middle of nowhere...

And one of them serves food!

There were 3 youngsters operating the food kiosk and the prices were really reasonable, so we had a go for it.

For NZD 30, we got :-
- A cup of seafood chowder that turned out to be a blaaah in terms of taste and contents
- Paua (abalone) fritter (was actually hardly visible bits of abalone fried with an egg batter)
- Whitebait fritter (egg fried with fish bits does not go well here...ah-ah)
- Grilled scallops (by far, the best we tried from the lot)

And all these served between slices of really grainy, wheat bread....blurggh. lol.

Still, we gotta eat! It was our only source of energy to walk back to town later! 

The good people at the kiosk did tell us that we were just about 10 minutes away from the Seals Colony.
So, might as well right? Anyway, I can't recall ever seeing a seal before.

Saw a mother duck and her little babies waddling nearby. 

The 10-min walk turned out to be 20 minutes. My poor knees were starting to feel the strain when we finally reached the shores of the Kaikoura Peninsula where a colony of NZ Fur Seal roam free here.

We saw about 10 of them basically doing nothing other than just lying on the rocks.

Hmmm, not much fun if I can't go near them to see how wild they can become.

He must be dreaming of Heidi Klum...zzz.

Hardly 5 minutes gawking and making silly noises to attract attention (I'm talking about me here), we left those precious creatures to their homely natural environment.
We were also kinda running out of time, though I would have loved to continue the walk down the Peninsula Walkway (claimed to have the best clifftop views!). (sulk)

On the way back, 2 Chinese girls on a bike cycled passed us, yelling "Hi, zhong guo ren" ("Hi, Chinese people")...........WATDAHECK!! .......They had bikes for rental??!  =_=

I finally got my crayfish meal right here at The Pier Hotel.

I mean, can't be that bad right if it was recommended by Lonely Planet.

It was private dining as we were the only ones there. Oh-oh, hope we didn't make a wrong choice....(heart sinking)

No brainer for guessing what we ordered.

chanting "do not convert, do not convert"

With this sort of view to look at while we dine, who needs Astro tv?

The very important utensils to make Operation Crayfish a successful one!

TA-DAAAAH!!!!!

What's the difference between a crayfish and a lobster?



NOTHING.
'cept that crayfish are like small lobsters.

Meat texture is the same white flesh.
My conclusion is if you've eaten lobster before, then you'll definitely not enjoy crayfish as much due to the smaller version.

 I still prefer crab. tee~hee.

After a full meal, satisfying nonetheless coz I got to eat crayfish (YEY!), my legs felt even more like jelly now. The Chinese might call them 'legs feeling sourish'?

Kaikoura is springing with beautiful blooms just like back in CC.

me marveling at the size of Russell

Here are just some flowers we saw.

Back to the drop-off place for our bus to pick us up at 4pm.

Got some time to walk on the beach nearby

and feed the seagulls.

Though my activities here were limited, Kaikoura definitely gets my vote as one of the coolest places to visit in NZ! It's something unexplained when I'm here, just felt incredibly serene and calm walking along the shores.

 

This is one lucky dog to live and grow old in NZ. Woof.