The Journey

Went to try the coastal walkway of the Peninsula Walkway, before realising that the walkway is untracked, which means there are no tracks for you, you got to find a way yourself for the journey.

First of all, I entered the Fyffe House, there's an entry price to enter into the house so I walked away and took a look at the outside instead, there are a lot of whale bones around the house, I tried knocking on them lightly but it doesn't seemed to be strong enough for the foundation of the building, maybe the bone is too old?

The walkway is kind of tough though, unlike the one I tried yesterday, I never had any ache on my legs, but my legs are aching tonight. There was one time when I was trying to find a rock for my next step, the big wave suddenly came and washed my feet and shoes. I had to walk for another 2-3 hours with my feet soaked in salt water, damn.

Along the walkway I noticed there are a lot of carcass of fur seals, around 11 of them separated and some seagulls'. I don't know how they died there, they were kind of far from the sea, I'm not sure whether they were wash ashore after dying in the sea or they died on land. I think the latter one would be more possible.

The entire journey was more than 3 hours for me since I stopped a lot on my way. The fur seals wouldn't be terrified or shocked when a human gets near them, at least those I met behaved like this, they are not in breeding season maybe.

Tired day.

Yes, the whites wood-like structures are whale bones.

First time touching wild seaweeds, seemed like rubber but I can't stretch them or tear them apart.

I never realised it was sleeping there until I was 2m close to it haha.

This is how the walkway looks like, all stones.

The wall of the rocks basically looks like this, I think this lower ground of Kaikoura maybe submerged in water long time ago.

Just like a paradise, amazing view.

Second day in Kaikoura, spent wisely.

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.