Better Be Home Soon (Kaikōura to Christchurch and home, New Zealand to Australia)

In leaving Nelson, we left our noisy nocturnal neighbour and moved into a much quieter digs. The Sudima is quite a new hotel and it looks new and fresh with glass taking advantage of every view from the snow capped mountains, through to the dolphin encrusted water. That's how it appears, everytime I look across the water, a pod of dolphins breaks the surface of the powder blue water and etches themselves across the horizon. Magic.

The mountains and the sea.

The rooms are spacious and quiet. There have been no disturbances from the corridor or the room nextdoor. No loud conversations, music, laughter, nothing, just the muffled sounds of lives being lived. After the grey of Greymouth and the noise of Nelson, I was just about done, but the Sudima and the beautiful Kaikōura weather have recharged my batteries.

Trust me, there are dolphins out there.

Except for one little surprise. Around 7 or 7:30am, I became aware of what sounded like a siren. Much the like the evacuate alarm we get at home, which starts faintly and gets louder. The siren, an old school one, like an air raid warning or shark alarm, just stayed as quiet background noise. I looked out the window, none of the locals appeared concerned, the ground was still, there was no tsunami. It was still audible, but there had been no announcement over the hotel p.a. so I assumed all was ok. 

A pity the beach is not white sand.

This turned out to be partially correct. All was OK for us. The siren was the local firies and they use it to let people know there has been a fire or car accident, an incident to which they are responding. In days gone bye before pagers and mobile phones, I imagine the siren summoned those on call to the station.

Kaikōura is all about getting outside. Well, it is New Zealand. There are multiple tramping options, fishing, dolphin, seal and whale chasing (on water or in the air), kayaking and sitting in the sun drinking beer. Ok, maybe I made the last one up. I still recommend it after you done something active.

We decided to explore the seal colonies to the south of the township, but first, breakfast at the Encounter Café. They serve pies. Weird pies. They all come with cheese. Jayne does not recommend them. The coffee was good.

The view back to town from the Point Kean headland.

The seal colony was a little too far to walk so we drove and scored the last car space in the car park. The walk commences at Point Kean and continues up the walkway to the lookout and track beyond or, unbeknown to me at the time, onto the rock platform and around the headland. Easy path or no-so-easy path. Clearly I chose the latter.

The path to the lookout is paved and provides excellent views back to Kaikōura with the backdrop of the mountains and then out to sea and across the rock platform and beaches and coves below - where the seals hang out. Once the lookout is reached (after 5 minutes) the path is mown grass and worn track. It can get a little muddy but is solid underfoot.

The water looks inviting.

As the path winds along the cliff top edge, there are numerous vantage points to stop and enjoy the view or take photos. Unless you're a backpacker (choose the country) and believe safety rules and warnings don't apply to you. In which case, you make several attempts to descend from the cliff top, but not by using any discernible path. Sadly, you survive this Darwinian test despite deserving to fall to your death with your three friends.

Seals everywhere.

We continue to walk along the cliff top, following the path, because we are not from Germany. The seal colony is visible below and there is ample opportunity to watch the seals sunbaking on the rocks, as well as their gymnastics in the water. There is also a well worn track along the foreshore that is heavily populated by walkers who chose the easier option. It is alo the path that gets you closer to the seals.

The kiddies pool.

Jayne spots a local tramper and asks if there are steps down to sea level via a regular path, one that doesn't challenge Darwin's Theory. He points far off into the distance to a clump of pine trees. Steps, there are steps there near the sanctuary. By sanctuary, he is referring to a section of land that is clearly fenced off from the surrounding area. It is double thick with a rolled-metal top to stop climbing animals and I assume the wire extends underground to stop digging predators. It turns out to be a mutton bird sanctuary and they fence it to keep out cats, possum, rats and stoats. Mutton bird eggs and newly hatched young would be easy prey for these introduced species.

The kiddies pool from sea level.

Having reached the sanctuary, it is time to bid Jayne farewell. She will not be joining me on the walk down the steps to the shoreline. The walk down was easier than expected; the steps are well maintained and have a handrail most of the way. At the bottom, the track ends abruptly with a sign warning there is no track maintenance beyond this point. There stands a young American couple, complete with backpack and compass, standing in the thigh length grass. "Excuse me. We're trying to get back to the car park. Have you walked this trail before?" No, sorry, I replied. Each of the track braids leads to the shore, so it's a matter of pick one and do as little damage as possible. And off I walked.

It's a hard life.

The braid I selected soon deposited me at the waterline and I started picking my way back towards the rock platform and car park. There were more people walking towards me than were heading in my direction. I looked up to the cliff top a few times but was never sure if I could see Jayne.

Just posing for a selfie.

There were seals everywhere. Well, what did you expect, it is a seal colony. There were numerous signs warning tourists not to disturb the seals, but some seals already looked disturbed. Some areas of the coastline were actually fenced off with rope. Anyway, I scored some good photos and I was glad we commenced the walk along the cliff top and then came down to sea level.

Please don't disturb me, I'm solving problems.

After some hide-and-seek with Jayne who had made her own way back to the car park, we drove back to the hotel for a well earned beer in the sun (see, I told you it was a thing here). It was glorious afternoon and we sat and watched the dolphins in the distance before dropping our gear back to our room and walking the couple of kilometres into the actual Kaikōura township. It has the usual collection of tourist/gift stores, pubs, bars, restaurants and a very aggressive ice cream store that only accepts cash or NZ issued cards - bugger off you international travellers! I so wanted an ice cream but there was no chance I was caving in to this level of aggression. No ice cream for me and no profit for them. Prucks.

Dinner was at the hotel again, where I challenged the wine list for the second night, again selecting 'out of stock' wines. It's a talent.

Another restful night and no morning siren before we packed our bags for the last hotel departure of our South Island road trip. After check out, today's breakfast option was the Kaikōura Bakery to sample their pies. Once again a success venture. They do a good pie in New Zealand. Then it was on the road to Christchurch airport, surviving no less than 4 contra flows on the way.

Another good pie.

The airport experience was pretty much as you might expect, except they don't open the international customs until 2 hours before flight time, which meant hanging around in the terminal and not the Lounge on the other side. The Lounge was fine, but it's no First Class Lounge and the wines were typically sweet to cater to local tastes.

The only thing to report was ou Qantas plane departure was an hour late and, in absolute affront, the Jetstar flight left on time. The only consolation was that it was landing in Melbourne, not Sydney.

And that's about it from the land of the long white cloud. We will be back to Christchurch, Dunedin and Kaikōura sometime in the future as well as Invercargill or Stewart Island to chase the southern lights.

And so, dear reader, I leave you with Crowded House from their 1988 album Temple of Low Men, the classic Better Be Home Soon. Let's hope we all get there safely.

Until mid-year and the West Australia Coral Coast followed by the Broome to Darwin expedition.