It was a 4:30am wake up on Thursday for whale watching, which came as a distinct shock to the system even for those of us who are now used to getting up at 6! After getting a picture of the sunrise and grabbing some breakfast, I went off to the whale watching office with the two Italian girls who had joined the trip the day before.
It turned out that the ship was sailing, but that because it was the first of the day, they didn't know where the whales were exactly, so we would act as a scout to go and find them. After a safety briefing, we were bussed off to the launch and boarded our ship, Paikea. Incidentally, Paikea is the name of the whale rider in Maori mythology.
What really surprised me was the professionalism of Whale Watch Kaikoura. They had four very modern boats with very comfortable seating and a plasma screen display in each one, showing graphics to illustrate the position of the boat along with all of the wildlife we saw. We had full commentary along the way and you really got to understand the background to everything that was going on.
The first half an hour was spent moving from one area to the next, with the captain stopping and lowering a hydrophone to listen for the sperm whales. The whales come up for air every 45 minutes on average and only remain on the surface for 5, so we were very lucky to see two of them within a minute of each other.
You could only see their backs as the remainder of their body stayed submerged, apart from a brief yet spectacular showing of their tail when they dived back into the ocean. Whale watching isn't the most exciting of experiences, but it's certainly humbling to see one of the world's largest animals from so close up.
On our return, it was off to Christchurch, a city named after the cathedral college of Christ Church in the University of Oxford. With a population of 345,000 it's the largest city in the South Island and lies on the East coast. We only had a couple of hours in which to get a taste of the city, so after a quick lunch I went to the city centre and its cathedral. The views from the top of the spire where hardly insipiring, excuse the pun, and the building was far from spectacular, so I went back down and towards the Art Gallery.
As one of the Rough Guide's "35 things not to miss", the Christchurch Art Gallery is housed in a very modern and striking building. I only had about 15 minutes inside since I was short on time, but I got to look round a couple of the galleries, which seemed nice enough. I then headed off to the Arts Centre opposite, specifically to Rutherford's Den.
Ernest Rutherford is the guy on New Zealand's 100 dollar note and is known as the father of nuclear physics. The Den is a small tribute to him and contains several rooms where he spend some time studying, teaching and experimenting in Christchurch. I only had 10 minutes inside, but it was interesting to see a bit of his history, since I learnt about him during Physics lessons at school.
We met up outside Christchurch's museum and we headed off to Rangitata after picking up six new people; two Germans, a Scot, a Brazilian, an American and a Swede. Up til then, the group had been split exactly equally in terms of gender, but of the six, five were female, so it added an interesting dynamic to the group.
We arrived at Rangitata, inland and South of Christchurch, and ended a long day with a meal under the stars, sleeping in a lodge that was practically in the middle of nowhere.
