Seals, Opera and Surf

This really is a great and diverse holiday. Following the whale watch we walked around the peninsula at Kaikoura. This is one of those coasts where farmhands became whalers. Again geology is highly apparent. This coast has limestone shelves and craggy eruptions. On which sit many seals.

We were to have swum with them but the turbulence in the sea cancelled that, so we kayaked out instead. This was great fun. We went in three two-man kayaks with a guide.

Here's the flotilla.

And here are some seals

We got very close

And Paddy our guide took some excellent pics too.

We rather enjoyed the kayaking itself, as well as the seals. A lovely evening made all the more enjoyable by being a bonus after the seal swimming disappointment.

Then it was time for dinner and a bed, ready for an early start on saturday to drive up the coast to Picton for the ferry to Wellington.

The mountains here - up to 2,600 metres above sea level come right down (or grow right up perhaps is more appropriate) from the sea, so the coast road was very beautiful. And it passes through Marlborough (Richard NB) so of course we stopped for a wine tasting. At Wither Hills Winery. That's new world wine speak for vineyard. Here it is -

Or rather some of their produce, on demonstration vines, a row per grape variety, in front of the winery building.

Here we are (or at least I am) sampling the wine. The weather was really warm. The greeness for this time of year is however surprising and due to a quite wet summer. It is so good it's dried up for us.

The ferry crosses the Cook Strait to link the South and North Islands. But before entering the Strait it goes through Queen Charlotte Sound.

and on the other side enters Wellington Harbour.

Ther we met up again with Stuart and Phyllis and returned to their beautiful home in Days Bay first for dinner with various members of the peletons of yore and their wives, (you can read all about it in the society pages of Peleton Now, and Gastro-Cycling Weekly). It was great to meet up again and also to put faces to names. After which we went to their church on Sunday and then all went on to Wainui Beach, via an operatic pops evening at Orouawharo, where all of the (excellent) female divas were farmers wives. Held outdoors, with a long dinner interval in front of this early New Zealand and rather grandfarmhouse.

And here are some of the audience.

Staying the night at a nearby B&B we arrived at Wainui Beach on Monday afternoon.

Wainui Beach is just north of Gisborne, Poverty Bay as named by Captain Cook. His first landing on New Zealand was at Poverty Bay on 7th October 1769. Whilst it was a long drive from Wellington, it is clear that the region is abundant for agriculture and grapes. And surf.

We are staying in a lovely house which is right on the beach. Wainui Beach is an enormously wide beach on the Pacific Coast. There's no land till you reach South America. It defies sensible adjectives, but one really has the feeling of being somewhere very large. Maybe it's the flatness of the ocean, but also the breadth of the view. For much of the bay, the human eye looking out to sea, sees no land at all, neither north, nor south. Naturally we all jumped straight in.

Here's a pic of the bay,well part of it.

And here is the surf...

One get's rather wet. Stuart has taken charge of cooking and we are eating splendid meals each evening, snapper, mussels washed sown with the wine we bought on the way. Phyllis is running a wine tasting competition each night.

This young man has clearly been practising.

However this young man clearly hasn't. A day two injury (Tuesday 23rd), the observant will see it's a dislocated right shoulder. Done diving under a wave, with body board trailing behind on a strap. Big yank from the wave did the damage. Dr Mossman administered first aid with very kind telephonic assistance from a local orthopaedic surgeon friend, but it wasn't working so we went to the excellent Gisborne hospital. X-ray below shows the before and after. (The before is the top one.)

This has curtailed my swimming and surfing, but I am mobile. And it doesn't hurt now. We are continuing to eat well of course. Which means I must sign off now - pre-prandial drinks are about to be served.