Ice, Whales and Wine
Friday, May 22, 2009
EDIT: All photos are up now and there are a lot of them (including the skydiving photos)! Enjoy!!!
Greetings from the North Island!
So what happened after the fjord you might be wondering? Well there was a lot more ice. We headed up the west coast to Fox Glacier where we did a small tramp to a lookout point but didn't get any closer to the glacier as there had been some rock slides recently and the valley was closed to tourists. Luckily Franz Joseph glacier was open so we headed there instead. The walk up to the glacier was really nice and actually standing right at the base of the glacier was really cool. There is nothing like millions of tons of Ice to get the Finnish heart racing.
With the glaciers done we headed up the coast to the pancake rocks. Layers of sedimentary rocks that have slowly been eroded away makes for a really cool scenery with blowholes and caves for the waves to break into... you'll have to go see the photos as it is a little hard to explain just what it all looks like.
After the pancake rocks we headed over to the east coast to the village of Kaikoura, home to whales and more whales. Guess what we did? The cruise was about 3 hours long and we got to see 3 Sperm Whales and a large pod of dusky dolphins. The whales were awesome! They really are huge and seeing the tail come up just before a dive is amazing. We also learned a lot about them I found amazing and wanted to share with you guys. They are the largest toothed whales (about 20 meters long), they eat all their food whole and their diet consists of giant squid, fish and sharks. They can dive over 2000m deep and use sonar to hunt and then they blast their prey with a 240 decibel (2 times the sound level of a 737 jet taking off) sound wave which stuns the animal and basically renders it immobile. In the belly of sperm whales they usually find giant squid and fish but also sharks. Sperm whales near Kaikoura usually eat Mako Sharks (3-4 meters long) but also Great Whites (up to 6 meters long) and they swallow them whole! Pretty crazy huh?
After Kaikoura it was time to get into wine. We headed up to Blenheim which is the center of the Malborough wine region. In Blenheim we managed to find the only ghetto which was the motor park we stayed in. We locked ourselves into the car and stayed there the rest of the evening … it was that bad! The wine tour however was the exact opposite. We spent the day tasting wine at 5 vineyards and enjoyed a delicious lunch of salmon and avocado quiche. The last winery was strangely enough the best one and so we had to buy a little bottle for later … the reason it was the best? Hmm … might have been the all the wine we had had earlier doing the talking. After sobering up it was time to leave the South Island and head to warmer weather.
We landed in windy Wellington with a slight deficit in our budget (Whales and wine are expensive hobbies to have) and it wasn't going to get any better. It isn't easy driving on the left under pressure, especially not when it's a bloody big Toyota Estima but despite my amazing driving skills I was about to get into my first proper car accident. Yes, I clipped the front of a Nissan Silvia while cornering into a car park at the blinding speed of 5 miles per hour but the resulting paint transfer was enough for the guy to need a new bumper … our treat! Hurray! The best way to get over losing money? Spend some more of course, so we went to see Angels and Demons which we both really enjoyed.
After windy Wellington it was time to head north and after a quick stop in Napier we arrived in Taupo. What are we going to do here? Dunno yet but it should be good :)
Laters,
Robbe & Micki
p.s: We are on a MB style of internet again so you'll have to wait a while for photos. Sorry :(
Posted byRobbe at 04:18
Absolutely amazing!! I can just see how this all captivates you -wish I would have been there!
Sorry to miss you in SF but Tom can't wait. Much love Mamma EL
Låter igen helt otroligt! O tack massor för vykortet :) Och se det ur den synvinkel, om man nu en gång ska vara med i en bilolycka, var det där den bästa olyckan man kunde vara i. Egentligen har du ju gjort er en tjänst! Nu e inte sannolikheten så stor att ni hamnar i en till bilolycka (som skulle ha kunna vara mycket farligare). En sådan tur :) Hälsningar från logikens hemland.. Och Jollbert hälsar också!