We turned up at Kaikoura in the early afternoon, just having completed 2,000 kilometres while
arriving at merely 200 klicks north of where we started. We arrived on a bright sunny day having pre-booked at the Panorama Hotel, a place set at the foot of a miniature White Cliffs of Dover but overlooking the whole bay. The main street of fun (bars, restaurants and backpacker lodges, etc.) is on the other side of the bay, about 2 klicks walk. The hotel is a stone's throw from the water which looks and smells exactly like my boyhood experiences at the beaches in Cornwall. When the tide goes out, it reveals an expanse of flat cracked stone, complete with rock pools and seaweed. Especially seaweed! Walk to the 
water's edge as the tide returns and it is the Invasion of The Kelp Monsters all over again. I took quite a few pictures and videos (prepared to be amazed and awed . . .) of the kelp, especially the toytown-yellow coloured suckers they extrude to grip the sides of the rocks -- they ain't going away in a hurry. As the tide swirls the kelp around it looks spookily alive (and quite creepy). And, if you get bored with that, there are plenty of seals to look out for and a plethora of bird species to identify. Just after the sun set the colours on the waters and rock pools changed to light blues and faint oranges. We walked a hundred meters to a nearby pub. It got darker, geese flew overhead and the moon and stars came out. It was at that point we could see that the moon was upside down and all the stars in the Orion constellation were not at their normally assigned places and we realised that we weren't in Kansas anymore, Toto. Certainly not Cornwall.
5 comments:
Somewhere between SciFi books and reality is Lampenland which appears to have taken hold in a land downunder.It's that or the local lager is stronger than he thinks,still can't wait for pics and vids and maybe some warmer weather over here to view them with.Love and kisses Mr Greeneyed monster and kin
No2 here - again
lack of bikers in New Zealand? I can think of a couple of reasons:
1) it would be very expensive as a tourist to bring a motor bike to NZ - even if it would fit under the seat or in the overhead locker on the flight out.
2) all the Kiwis of a certain age - ie mad enough to want to bike around bendy roads are rather more than 15 KPH are probably working abroad either in pubs or the 'Extreme Sports' industry, for example the bungee jumping and white water rafting in Zambia at Victoria Falls is mainly run by Kiwis and their pals tend the bars in a number of lodges on the Zambesi. I thoroughly enjoyed the white water rafting at Vic Falls - I watched it many times from the bar of a lodge overlooking the bit where white water rafters became white water swimmers!
all this about kelp - you've been out in the sun without your hat again haven't you!
what next seaweed windchimes?
While we lie snugly in our bed,
Linda and Dave are doing N.Z.
Their wild adventures make us cringe,
For neither we, nor Steve, nor Ginge,
Would want to spend our hard earned cash,
On frightening deeds that seem so rash.
Glaciers and geysers and thermal springs,
And a host of other expensive things.
And at what cost! So much to pay!
Cos Christchurch isn't so far away,
And Milford is even closer still,
Just through the Forest and down the hill.
But true adventurers are Linda and Dave,
The rest of us are not that brave.
So their daring exploits they can keep -
We're just off to the Salmon Leap!
Love F and D. X
I think I begin to understand the obsession with seaweed, you are on a quest to find the truth behind a little known religous sect (soon the be the subject of a blockbuster by Dan Brown!) that worships seaweed. The adherents believe the miracle of the feeding of the 5000 was with fish and loaves of Lava Bread shipped from Wales by Celtic druids. The sect lives on in the modern times especially through its music "wrack and roll" The Beatles were one time devotees singing "Kelp". Many adherents called hippies travelled to California for the "weed" - probably the large kelp forests just off the coast. Keep up your search for enlightnement sea grasshopper!
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