Went to the Albatross Encounter this morning at 9am. Nothing much to talk about it though. Hop on to a boat of around 8 people, and we are taken 20 minutes into the ocean, quite far away from the shore. The skipper then throw a fish liver caged in a net into the sea and those seabirds just came in bulk, seeking for free food, haha. For those who don't know this, the Wandering Albatross has the longest recorded average wingspan of 3.1m in the world! The second being the Southern Royal Albatross with 3.0m. I met both of them in the tour today!
We are quite lucky for today, spotted a lot of species other than albatross, like the petrels, shearwaters, skuas, terns and shags. I can't remember most of them, I just typed out according to the record by the skipper. We spotted one of the endangered species of shearwaters too, ie. Hutton's shearwater, beautiful bird, elegant flying pattern. Most of the birds that came for the fish liver are albatross and petrels, since they are bigger and more aggressive, the smaller birds did not came close for the food, just wandering near them. And albatross are quite fierce and aggressive, it's very common to see them fighting for the fish liver but I did not see any blood coming out though, so that's fine.
On the way back, there were dolphins (Dusky dolphins) following our boat too, jumping out of water, managed to take some shots of it but most of them are really bad shots haha. But that's not many of them though, just around 10, but they did not come all at once, only around half of them came close enough for me to capture them. If you want more of them, pay for the Dolphin Encounter then you will have the chance to see tens or hundreds of them around your boat. The entire tour took around two and a half hours.
Originally, the seal swimming was at 1pm, on the same day, but I had been wanting to cancel it for the last few days, since I felt that I should not spend money on these activities. It seemed like law of attraction works, the seal swimming was cancelled due to harsh weather, and I got a full refund. Great. Even though I bought a swimming trunk just for this activity, but whatever.
My boring afternoon is spent by going to the Peninsula Walkway around the whole Kaikoura, the estimated time is 3 hours, but I took more than 4 hours for two reasons, I stopped a lot for some photos and second, I walked the wrong way. Lol. This walkway is probably the best activity I had done in New Zealand, the view is stunningly awesome, especially from the mountain walkway, where you can see the whole coast of Kaikoura.
Before going up the hill, there is about one hour of walking along the coastline, where you can see the seal colony, fur seals colony to be exact. They are a quite common species in New Zealand. Saw around 10-20 fur seals along the coastline before I hike up, one of them came close enough for me to take some close photos, like within 7m of distance. I wish I could jump down to the rock and hug them haha.
On the way, I also saw some llamas in the Fyffe House, which is the oldest building in Kaikoura and the only remains of the Robert Fyffe's whaling station back in 1842, Kaikoura was once a major whaling I think they are from the Llama Trekking tourist activity. Saw some wool sheeps on the way back to the town centre too.
This hostel is not bad I decided to stay for one more night before heading to Christchurch and Akaroa. Maybe tomorrow I will go for the different walkway, there are two walkways by the way, the one I took is the mountain walkway which you can enjoy the view from high mountains, and the another one is the coastline walkway, where you walk along the coast for a longer distance before you hike up to join the mountain walkway. The latter walkway is not bad, you get the chance to see more seals along the coast and better chance to get closer to them. Got no further plan yet, let's see what happens tomorrow.
The Southern Royal Albatross
Look at that wingspan!
They can walk on water with their wings wide open.
The endangered Hutton's shearwater. We spotted four different species of the Shearwaters family.
Classic flying pose.
Albatross fighting for foods, happen a few times every minute.
Closer look on the Southern Royal Albatross.
I still can't differentiate between Southern Royal Albatross and Wandering Albatross, sorry.
New Zealand White-Capped Albatross
Modelling in progress...
New Zealand White-Capped Albatross closer look.
Dusky dolphins on our way back to the South Bay. Lucky
The boats here are not parked in the harbour. Instead they are pulled up by a tractor and parked at the roadside. They have to do so as the big waves during the thunderstorm will bring damage to the boats.
Llamas in Fyffe House
Seemed like this seal got lost, there are no seals within 1km around it. Maybe it needs to be alone for some reasons?
This is not captured from the walkway, I simply climbed on the steep ground to get here, lost my water bottle in the process, luckily you can drink tap water here in New Zealand.
Yawning fur seal
Aseal - Rolling in the deep. Damn cute.
That sexy pose.
View from the mountain walkway of Peninsula Walkway.
These are captured along the mountain walkway. It's like another land up here, it's flat ground and it feels peaceful here haha.
The view is stunning right? Haha.
The photos above are capture along the mountain walkway.
Giant Lalang
After coming down from the mountain, you will continue along the South Bay at the lower ground before going back to the mountain track again.
I don't know why it is bent, unique.
Just like rainforest.
All those asses.
I don't know what kind of flower are these, it's damn big, more like cactus than flower.
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