Thar She Blows!

Well we've just done about the coolest thing you can do in this hemisphere, rivalling the Orangs and whatever Asian toury chat you can get up to there...we've seen whales, people!
Taking our leave of all things frozen, we left the west coast and Tommy took us in his safe hands across the Southern Alps. On the way we stopped by Hanmer Springs to dip in the sulphurous springs (my excuse for the smell anyway) and rectified our leaky bed situation; we are now the proud owners of a foam mattress, to pay for which we have had to put off plans for a treat of sleeping in a real room and bed. We also took on board our first hitch hiker, who added to the long list of odd Israeli people we've met and made us go through the emotional drills of making room in the back for her. We're pretty good at it now, so any more hitch hikers out there can standby for the Flying Cerise!
Having made it over to the east, we're now based in a town called Kaikoura, Maori for "Good to eat bird feathers", a corruption of the intended "good to eat crayfish" which is the region's speciality. Having eaten our own body weight in Oz lobster, we weren't interested in that, though; it was the sea mammals we had come for and disappointment was not to be our just desserts (sorry).
We'd booked ahead for Whale Watcher and rocked up for the 0930 departure with a coach load of the usual septuagenarians. The water was millpond again and we had heard there were cetaceans in the offing, so all was well with the world. The company runs a very slick operation, using new turbo-powered catamarans, hydrophones to listen for the whale sonar and well-trained guides who know good stuff and tell you; none of your Buddha-shaped caves here! As promised, we got around 4 miles offshore and loitered on the edge of the oceanic canyon at the end of the continent, a favourite place for lots of sperm whale bachelor herds. The sonar noises tailed off, but we were told this was a good sign and meant the whale was using a high-pitch sounding to pick a place to surface...
Suddenly there was a call that he had surfaced; and guess who had seen him first? That's right, Capt Ahab Bochenski! Usually specially wildlife-myopic, Rach was looking right at him when he blew and was soon deluged by tottering tourists and their trained cameras. I missed him but in fairness had taken up a position making sure none of the Jap tourists got out any of their picnic-size harpoons to get up to their usual tricks...
Our first whale was called Nick and hung around for around 10 minutes, blowing mucus all the while, before diving, allowing us to go and seek out another of his kind called Noodle (he usually stays for 2 minutes flat but today loitered and gave us a great tail show as he dived).
Time was pushing so, sated with our sightings, we headed off for the usual glimpse of a seal colony only to be given more treats; a huge pod of dusky dolphins, gambolling around the boat and jumping into the air, and even a circumpolar wandering albatross, largest wing-spanned bird in the world! The tour was fantastically well run, complete with on-board CGI films of the animals we'd seen and virtual underwater tours of the canyon we were sailing over.
All in all we were feeling a little PWS (pleased with selves) on our return and so treated ourselves to a slap-up seafood lunch of mussels and scallops with local vino (hence the writing style of this post), although I think we overdid it with the mud pie...
Next stop, after we've slept this lot off, is Blenheim for some wine and then maybe we'll have to see what the North island has to offer...