Day 11: Days of wine and roses and sperm (whales, that is)
The best morning after a long night of drinking is no morning at all, but that's not a possibility when the team bus is leaving at the crack of dawn. I learned long ago from a fellow consulting analyst named Dan that rallying the morning after is duty. I paid my penance this morning, skipping breakfast to sit outside by the bus, sucking in the cool morning air.
First stop was one of the wineries in Blenheim. NZ has gained a reputation for putting out solid value wines, and their climate is favorable for chardonnays, sauvignon blanc, and pinot noir. For the life of me, I can't remember the name of the winery we visited, but I bought three bottles: some champagne, a dessert wine, and a cab-merlot blend.
Our next stop was the peninsula of Kaikoura. There's one reason to go to Kaikoura, and that's to get off dry land and meet some aquatic life forms. Our activity list offered three such opportunities: spot sperm whales, swim with Dusky dolphins, or swim with fur seals. Actually, make that two. So many people go to Kaikoura to swim with dolphins that Dolphin Encounter had been booked full long ago.
The previous day, I had chosen the sperm whale option. As a youngster, I was like most boys (I think)--interested in dinosaurs, insects, and whales. Even after I became interested in girls, I never lost that Discovery Channel fascination. So the thought of meeting Moby Dick in person was too much to resist.
After splitting a crawfish at lunch with Rob, fellow Ishmaels and I checked in with Whale Watch Kaikoura. The crew included Parveen and Olav. Whale watching isn't cheap, but sperm whale spotting has been reduced to a near science in Kaikoura. The local whale watching outfits share the whale spotting duty among their boats and helicopters and sonar equipment, and they know exactly how long each whale can stay below water before having to come up for air. Using all that technology, they can pinpoint with a great degree of accuracy where to plant their boats and roughly when a sperm whale will poke it's back out of the water to draw air through its blowhole.
The boat ride out was choppy. Inside the boat, a video introducing the most well-known sea animals of the region played on a plasma TV, but I was too nauseous to pay attention. Parveen needed to use the motion sickness bag, and I wasn't far off. Our guide knew how to work the microphone to build the suspense, constantly telling us that some whale had been spotted nearby, and another crew member wore headphones and listened to sounds from a microphone submerged below the water on a boom. Occasionally they'd pipe some muffled whale calls through the speakers to tease our suspense levels. Another Whale Watch Kaikoura boat floated nearby, everyone sharing the same intelligence.
And then...whale ahoy! All of us rushed to the upper deck as if the lower decks were on fire. And what did we spot? A thin, grey sliver of the sperm whale's back, floating at the top of the water like the top of a log. Everyone started snapping photos like paparazzi. Even without my 80-200mm zoom lens, I was caught up in the mania and even have a few photos I snapped between the bodies of other tourists pressed against the railing. It all seems so silly now.
After a few minutes, all the cameras stopped to catch their breath. We began to realize that this was it. The sperm whale would occasionally blow some water out of its blowhole, but other than that it didn't do much. In fact, the most exciting aspect of sperm whale watching is when, after 5 to 10 minutes of oxygen intake, the whale points its head down towards the depths and submerges. It's the highlight because that's when the whale's tail lifts out of the water and carves a graceful arc above the water's surface as it waves goodbye. It's the money shot depicted on all the postcards of sperm whales, because sperm whales provide no other visuals of interest.
After the whale submerged we left and headed to another location where
we witnessed the same exact thing again. Whale back for five minutes,
whale tail waves goodbye in about 8 seconds, and c'est finis. So if you
get a chance ever to go whale watching, I recommend stalking humpbacks
or orcas or some species of whale that will breech, attack your boat,
or eats some other animal, like a fur seal. After seeing the movie Moby
Dick, I was disappointed in the performance of the sperm whale.
My suggestion? Offer a new activity called "swimming with sperm whales".
Now that would be cool.
After we got back on shore, though, I did spot a few dolphins popping in and out of the water along shore, so it wasn't a total loss. And with that, it was back to the bus and on to Christchurch.
Christchurch is a big city, the first we'd encountered since Wellington. Its name is one hint of its Englishness, the names of its rivers (the Avon cuts through the heart of the city) and streets is a second, and the Victorian architecture is a third. We stayed, approrpiately, at the Cathedral Camelot Hotel in Cathedral Square.
We had a free night for dinner, but we couldn't get enough of each other so we followed Johnny and Ange to dinner at Cafe Bleu. The important milestone to recall here is that Ange introduced me to a drink called the Horny Monkey. The other thought I had this day is that I love the fact that taxes are included in all meal and drink prices in New Zealand. Simple, convenient, brilliant.
After dinner we took a stroll along Oxford street and its cornucopia of bars. Ange and Johnny led us to a Texas-themed bar called the Mad Cow, populated at that hour by mostly lonely old men listening to the non-stop parade of 80s pop dance hits by Queen and Abba and the like. Before we left, though, Ange made me visit the men's room. The walls above the urinals were various pornographic photos of women. Very classy.
A group led by Rachel and Kerryn headed off to a multi-level dance club/bar called the Holy Grail that Rachel had heard about from friends. Another group of us meant to follow but took a detour when we passed by the Camelot Hotel because some band was playing outdoors on a stage set up outside a bar right next door. They sounded pretty good.
Ange, Johnny, Corinna, Ali, and few other of us grabbed beers and listened to the band Lucre jamming covers of stuff like There She Goes by the La's. The lead singer was a cute "rocker chick" type. My mind was soggy with beer, though, so don't take my word for it.
And so we never did make it out to Rachel's dance club, but we'd be back in Christchurch again soon.
Next: A day of travel, and the smelly hotel
Whale Watch Kaikoura: 2.5 hr tours, NZ$95 for adults. This is a high tech operation, so they won't even take you out unless they're certain you'll see some sperm whales. I got seasick, and sperm whales don't do a whole lot except float at the surface of the water and breathe for a few minutes before submerging.
Dolphin Encounter: swim with Dusky dolphins, supposedly the most fun of the dolphin species, for NZ$95. Since Kaikoura is the most popular swim-with-dolphin destination in all of NZ, book this way in advance to have any hope of getting a spot.
Swim with Seals: hop in the water with New Zealand Fur Seals who'll dive and twirl around you as you float in the water awkwardly in your snorkel mask and fins. You'll think they're so playful, but they're merely showing you up and laughing at your ineptitude when off dry land.