Cheese, cheese and more cheese, Kaikoura Cheese Company - a dream

The Kaikoura Cheese Company operates a retail outlet on Kaikoura’s main street. Here tastings and purchases can be made of the artisan award winning cheeses that have left New Zealand’s top chefs and restaurants lauding. Believing myself to be a cheese connoisseur – for the simple reason that I eat an awful lot of it – I dropped by the store and sampled their signature ‘Tenara’ - an ash coated goats cheese which apparently takes fifteen days to mature and quite honestly left me drooling for more.

Seabirds galore on an Albatross Encounter Tour

A morning Albatross Encounter tour awaited and I eagerly met up with skipper Gary to head out on the hunt for the mightiest sea bird of them all. Our boat was small and open-sided which meant a perfect view was to be had on this gloriously sunny day. Gary explained that one of the best starting points was to seek out the local fishing boats as sea birds naturally pursue these chaps hoping for some of their scraps. It didn’t take very long to spot some activity up ahead and our little boat surfed and jumped the pacific waves rapidly to reach it. Almost immediately we began being circled by some rare and exciting sea birds – Mollymawks, Westland Petrels (who I personally thought had handsome faces), and boisterous Northern Giant Petrels who happily scrapped with each other right by our boat as they fought over the chunk of ham Gary had tossed into the ocean. After a short while and a lot of happy photo snaps later we headed off again. This time Gary told us we were going further out to sea all the way to the edge of the Kaikoura Canyon. As the engine stopped and we bobbed and swayed about it was mentioned that the sea floor beneath us was at least 1km deep! Our eyes were thankfully more focused on what was happening overhead. We all silently waited as more and more birds began to appear. Gary pointed several specific ones out for our attention – the Hutton’s Shearwater and Buller’s Shearwater, a Wandering Gibson’s Albatross and a New Zealand White-Capped Albatross. An awesome spectacle was on display but the show stopper and the bird we all instantly recognized with a collective gasp was the Southern Royal Albatross. It soared across in front of the boat, a very close distance above our heads! For a bird with such a large wingspan (about three metres) it was wondrously graceful. It felt awfully surreal drifting about out on the ocean with the only noise being a raucous squeal or flap of oversized wings. Gary informed us that many of the Albatross we were seeing nest down in the Campbell Islands, 700km south of New Zealand’s South Island. Several of these Albatross have been tracked using satellite transmitters which have showed them capable of travelling up to 1,000km per day!!  Despite observing all these astounding over-sized seabirds my own personal favourite was the little Fluttering Shearwater – a tiny guy by comparison. They fly just above the water with a series of rapid wing beats – hence their endearing name.

Spend the night on a lavender farm complete with outdoor bathroom

Just north of Kaikoura is Lavendyl Farm dreamily situated beneath the lofty peaks of the Kaikoura Mountain Range. A stroll around the farms gardens introduced me to so many different variations of lavender that personally I had no idea existed. My accommodation for the night was at one of their two on-site petite cottages. This allowed me to wander the lavender gardens on my own after all other visitors had departed which was a real pleasure. A delight also was the private outdoor bath and shower I had at my cottage. My very considerate host had kindly left me a bottle of lavender oil and it was a delicious luxury to soak in the peaceful outdoor tub surrounded only by birdsong and bush. The following morning, I woke to find some freshly made bread wrapped up and left by the cottage door, gratefully received as I had another early start.

Crayfish by the beach galore in Kaikoura

The name Kaikoura itself means ‘meal of crayfish’. Kai being the Maori word for food with Koura meaning crayfish. This delicacy is famed throughout New Zealand and is fished in the waters around Kaikoura. Crayfish is a type of lobster found in abundance here with seemingly everywhere in the township selling it. The best place to sample it though must be the Kaikoura BBQ, a simple food cart set up by the beach. I was asked to choose my own crayfish from the chilly bin (ice box) and was given the tip that whilst size doesn’t matter so much price certainly does, the more expensive the crayfish the better the quality. My cray was then BBQed in front of me by the experts. Grabbing a table overlooking the beach I couldn’t imagine a more quintessential Kaikoura experience than this – sitting by the ocean, salty sea air drifting on the breeze, savoring the delicious flavours of the succulent melt in the mouth crayfish.

Swimming with the fur seals, in Kaikoura

Seal Swim Kaikoura afforded me the fantastic opportunity of mixing it up with the playful New Zealand fur seals. First though I needed to get dressed and geared-up for such an occasion, so I headed into the changing rooms at the back of their office in Kaikoura’s main street.  Decked out in a snug fitting buoyant wet suit complete with snorkel and mask I was all set to trickily wade my way over to the distinctive yellow Seal Swim Bus. During our short journey our enthusiastic crew told us all about the seals and how the location chosen to swim in changed daily dependent on the clarity of the water and playfulness of the seals. I was reminded that any interaction was at their discretion and it was crucial to remember that this was a wild encounter. Luckily New Zealand fur seals are a naturally curious bunch and as we approached in the Seal Swim yellow zodiac boat – yes there is a lot of yellow going on - the younger pups were soon inquisitive, peering down at us eager to discover what these odd things were! Impatient to get in the water I donned my face mask, set up my snorkel and gently guided myself over the edge of the boat. The sea water instantly felt on the cold side – it was the Pacific Ocean after all – and the waves a little choppy, but this soon mattered not one iota as I began to see movement around me in the water. Clambering about on solid ground they were a clumsy bunch, but in the water, it was a different matter entirely as they twisted, turned, spun and weaved, gliding through the water uninhibited. All the time I got the impression though that they were still being mischievously inquisitive.  I kicked against the tide putting my head down just in time to see a seal swim right up to my mask and peer direct at me. For a few precious seconds I literally was nose to nose with a fur seal! I struggled to think of an adequate word to help describe this amazing close-up encounter – perhaps honoured.