Kaikoura Part II

12-25-09

Merry Christmas everyone! We hope everyone had a pleasant holiday.

We have been in Kaikoura since Christmas Eve afternoon. It didn’t take us long to get from Akaroa to Kaikoura but we made a couple of stops along the way so it ended up being along the line of five hours or so. One of those stops involved a grocery store north of Christchurch where we endured the Christmas Eve crowds at a shopping center in a suburb called Belfast. It was just like home (sigh)! But we still found time to talk with a nice woman in the check out line who lived in the area and had also spent a little bit of time in Maryland one Christmas holiday season and remarked about how they’d been snowed upon that year. We seem to attract people who want to talk to us and find out where we’re from. I don’t know why - we must look like tourists or something.

Anyway, once we got ourselves sorted out yesterday, we ventured out to one of my favorite spots in Kaikoura, Point Kean. In fact we only just learned that it is called Point Kean (see picture below). For some reason, Google Maps does not list a name for it so “Map Boy” here had no clue that the place actually had a name. I’m so embarrassed. But I digress.

While out on Point Kean we ran into a couple of sea lions who were not at all interested in chatting us up and finding out where we were from, they were really all about sleeping on the shoals until the tide came back in for the evening. We were more than willing to let them be especially after my last run in with a sea lion at Howell’s Point. So we walked on the shoals and I took pictures (surprise) until we finally got hungry and went to dinner. I will mention that dinner was excellent. Easily one of the best meals we’ve had since our dinner in Auckland. The White Morph Restaurant is just a couple of doors down from our apartment and it seemed like it would be ok since we could walk that far and not completely regret it. But the meal knocked our socks off so it was a real pleasant surprise.

Today, we took a hike (or track as they call them here) on the Kaikoura Peninsula walkway. It was a beautiful day with the temp around 70 degrees or so, sunny and just a few high clouds. Absolutely perfect weather, something we didn’t have at the beginning of our trip. (See earlier blogs.) The whole track according to the guide map, was supposed to take around three hours. It actually took us about four hours and twenty minutes. Of course I wasn’t keeping track of time because I was busy taking pictures.

Since we knew (actually at first we suspected, but subsequent research proved our theory correct) that all the restaurants in Kaikoura were going to be closed for Christmas day, we had already purchased our Christmas dinner in Belfast (remember Belfast?). So tonight we cooked up a nice roast beef, mashed potatoes, and green beans. We washed that down with some local New Zealand Cabernet/Merlot wine and we aim to finish that off with some chocolate Moose, I mean mousse, that we brought home from the White Morph last night. Funny how it all comes around again.

Merry Christmas once again everyone! Gotta go, I’ve got a mousse that I need to help consume.

Cheers!

P.S. The picture above is Whalers Bay. It was taken while on our track today.