Closley escaping death by killer orca

Kaikoura at dusk
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Hanmer Springs

From Akaroa we headed upwards and stopped a night at Hanmer Springs, famed for its thermal srpings resort... but of course the one day we decide to go there is the hottest day we've had in New Zealand so far! So much for sitting in the hot springs! It felt like my head was going to explode as it was. So we spent the day lying in the shade and to get our money's worth we venured into the hot pools around 7 i nthe evening, sat there for a while and then had a cold shower! Oh dear. Still a nice day though. A good book by the pool to recover from the Chrsitchurch hangover, I'm not complaining! :)

I'm glad visibility was low or I'd have actually peed myself...not something you want in a wetsuit!! :)

Where mountains and ocean meet
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Kaikoura

After Hanmer the road took up up to Akaroa, famed for its seafood and marine wildlife. Most people come here for whale watching or dolphin watching but we'd seen our dolphins teeheee, so we arrived without much of a plan. And turns out most things were cancelled beacsue of the bad weather and rough sea conditions. But one thing still going was the seal swim so we went for that. And it was so much fun! We got kitted out in smelly wetsuits and fins and snorkels and actually had to walk for about 20mins to get to the right bay. Not in the fins and snorkels of course :) but in the wetsuits. Nice, we looked like real plonkers trudging past the sunday wlakers like penguins. But anyways, once in the bay it was amazing. There were looads of seals around! And seals are great. They love to play! And they're so inquisitive! Much more so than dolphins. They literally came within cms of you, came swimming right up to you and would then swirl aournd you, their huuuge eyes staring right into yours. Quite an experience! One came so close it touched my hand. I kept squealing and getting water in my mouth! And because the conditons were rough the water was quite murky and visibility was low so you wouldn't realse that they were there and suddenly out of the blue they'd pop out right in fron of you! And you'd look around and see you were surrounded by four or five of them! Amazing! It was reassuring to know that they're gentle, beacsue they really are quite huge. 3 metres some of them and really quite fat! Sometimes it was easier to actually see them from above the water than from below and often they'd lie on their side and poke out a little fin and wave it around as if to say look, here I am, come and get me if you can! All the while we were out there playing we could see a crowd gathered up on the cliff staring out at what we though was us. I was tempted to wave up at them and did wonder why they thoguht we were so fascinating. As we got out of the water we learnt the true reason for their excitement- there had bee an orca whale swimming past us just behind the rocks sheltering the bay!!! And yes, orcas are known as killer whales because they eat other whales. And seals. Aaaaaagh! I'm glad visibility was low or I'd have actually peed myself...not something you want in a wetsuit!! :) So I know, not exaclty a near death story, but I have to grab your attention somehow, don't I?! ;)