Hello friends!
We completed our South Island tour with a bang. We took a wine tasting tour in the Marlborough Region which produces wines that make our taste buds so happy! Here the specialty is Sauvignon Blanc but we also found some beautiful Rose's and Pinot Noir's. There are 66,000+ acres planted in grape vines in the Marlborough Region which is pretty incredible since this region just started producing wine less than 40 years ago. Similar to other parts of the country, most of the vineyards are boutique producing fairly small quantities. However, here you also find the familiar NZ large producer names such as Brancott, Wither Hills and Yealands. On our tour, we visited 4 unique vineyards and came home with several nice bottles from our favorites of the bunch. On this trip, the Jackson's Estate wines were the winners. We're hoping to enjoy a few more bottles while we're still in NZ as distribution in the US is very limited.
Unique cellar door of the Jackson's Estate.......notice the bachelor stag party group on the right having fun!
A cool tasting room
Vineyards as far as the eye can see
Next stop is Kaikoura, a beautiful coastal village that is nestled between the Pacific Ocean and the tall mountains of the Kaikoura Range. This place is definitely off the beaten path but in our opinion it is a "must visit" locale on the South Island. Besides amazing scenery, the area is teeming with marine life and sea birds. Thousands of NZ fur seals live on the rocky coast and we saw good numbers of baby seal pups since it is calving season.
Kaikoura's stunning views
Snack time for baby seal pup
The beaches here are rocky and steep. In less than a half mile off shore, the ocean floor plunges to 4000 feet deep due to the underwater Kaikoura Canyon. Called the BIG DEEP, this sea trench extends 37 miles and creates a cold-water supermarket for wild life. As cold water moves towards the coast, it begins to rise bringing with it nutrients from the deep ocean. These nutrients encourage a food chain which begins with tiny plankton and goes all the way up to the whales. Fish are plentiful and with fish come sea birds, dolphins and fur seals. The area is a bio-diversity hot spot and offers some incredible experiences via tours.
Spring flowers, aquamarine seas and mountains still wearing a bit of winter snow. How pretty is that!
Our first tour was a seabird watching boat ride which provided us with some up close views of a variety of albatrosses, petrels and shearwaters. We found eight new species on this trip taking our NZ bird spotting list to 124 distinct species. Albatross are absolutely amazing birds. With wing spans of over 10 feet, they are masters at soaring over the ocean using the wind currents that flow right above the waves. Take off from the water is a laborious affair given their size. We learned that after a big meal, albatross have to sit and digest their meal until they are light enough to get airborne again.
The shy Royal Albatross
The snoopy Wandering Albatross
The serious Salvin's Mollymawk
Our next adventure took us above the water in search of the giant sperm whales that live year round in the area. We had a glorious clear day providing us with fabulous views of the area as we searched the water for our prize. Sperm whales are the largest toothed whale in the world. Living up to 70 years, sperm whales can grow up to 52 feet long and reach weights of 63 tons. Even though this whale has teeth, it doesn't bite it's prey. Instead, sperm whales use a type of sonar that is so intense it actually stuns its prey which is then swallowed whole. Typical meals include fish, rays, sharks and its favorite nibbley is squid. These whales have four stomachs like cows which process up to a ton of food consumed every day. Spotting a sperm whale takes patience as they normally spend an hour underwater hunting and then about 10 minutes on the surface before they return to great depths. So you have a small window of time every hour to actually see them resting on the surface. Lucky for us, the pilot spotted one and did a phenomenal job of taking us in tight turns right over the whale. Pictures are hard to get, but we'll never forget the experience of seeing this magnificent creature.
Sperm whale
The dark blue water shows you how close the deep ocean is to shore here.
What a blast that was!
Hoping to get a closer look at the whales, we also took a boat whale watching tour. Lucky for us, we were able to see two blue whales which are the largest mammals known to have lived on earth. Blues are baleen whales growing to 100 feet long and weighing in at 173 tons. All of this size is accomplished by eating up to 8 tons of krill every day which speaks to how nutrient rich these waters are. They are bobble divers meaning they dive and then return to the surface about every 10 minutes compared to the sperm whales which stay down for an hour or more.
Blue whale blow
Too funny
While we didn't find any sperm whales during our boat tour, we did have the thrill of seeing a huge pod of Dusky Dolphins. These friendly dolphins love to leap out of the water and play alongside the tour boats delighting everyone onboard. This pod had several hundred dolphins including some babies.
Dusky Dolphin's having fun
Kaikoura means crayfish in Maori because they were once very plentiful in this harbor. In NZ, a crayfish is what we would call a lobster and the species here is what we would know as a spiny rock lobster. Anyhoo, you can't visit Kaikoura without having the local delicacy at a famous food shack alongside the road. Served chilled with lemon, these lobsters are tasty!
Oops - should have taken the photo prior to gobbling it up.
And just like that, our time on the south island is over. It's been another amazing two months of diversity, beauty and surprises. From here, we head to Christchurch to do a few errands and then on to Auckland where we will celebrate Christmas and New Years.
Sending you holiday hugs and joy!
Cheryl & Dan
Comments
Post a Comment