Kaikoura Peninsula Walk

 

Woke up to fog and headed out from camp to do the Kaikoura Peninsula Walk. We walked past the Albatross Experience office a d the Monterey Cypress Beach and then turned right onto Tom's Track.  

We climbed up the hill following the tsunami evacuation route to get to the other side of the peninsula.

Soon the sun came out and we followed the South Bay Beach

To the South Bay Recreation Preserve with its Maori gateway.

Here we ran into a woman who was looking for a great egret that had been seen here recently, but no luck today.

The Kaikoura shoreline has these interesting rock terraces that I wondered if they had been created by the 2016 earthquake but it turns out to be a combination of tectonic upheavals and erosion that precedes the earthquake.  

We came across this interesting (and lurid?) clematis growing along the path:

The trail then climbed up into the headlands with views all over the coast.  At one viewpoint people were looking out on whales spouting off in the distance.

Volunteers here have built an artificial Hutton's shearwater colony.  The only 2 remaining colonies are located here on the Kaikoura Peninsula.  They transported chicks from those colonies here starting in 2005.  At first there was a lot of losses. due to predation from cats so they installed a predator proof fence after which survival improved.  Since 2010 the shearwaters have been returning to breed and in 2024, 27 chicks survived to fly away. 

Further along we looked out over a fur seal colony.  It turned out to be very large with seals lolling on the rocks for miles.

There's fur seal pups way down there

We dropped dropped down to the shore and snagged a passionfruit ice cream at a food truck.

Delicious!

Look at these Norfolk Island pines:

Soon afterward there  was supposedly a shortcut back to town.  We climbed up a hill

And found ourselves in a sheep farm.  We were confused about where we were supposed to go and found ourselves skulking around someone's back yard.  Eventually we realized we were supposed to go up and over the sheep field (steeper than it looks in the photo).

I put my foot down, enough climbing for one day, and we retur Ed to the shore.

Amazingly this was the first chance we had to take pictures of sheep, considering how many we'd driven by all month.  It's not so easy to stop for photos on the side of the highway.  Roads don't have shoulders here.

We continued past historic Ffyfe House, a former whaling station

Making our way back to town.

Past some attractive (but probably invasive) flowers

And backc to the Cypress Beach to complete our loop, and then traced our steps back through town to the campground.

The Rest of our Second Day in Kaikoura

 

After our morning nap we drove out to a prime birding spot common to most regions of the world, the local sewage lagoon (not to outshine that other birding hotspot, the municipal dump).

Fun fact:  Those cruise passengers who recently died of  hanta virus are believed to have contracted it while birding in a Peruvian dump!

We had to walk down a train track and then peer through a wire fence to bag a few new birds today.

Australasian Shoveler (lifer)

Grey Teal (seen in Australia)

Eurasian Coot (seen with mallard).  Also seen in Australia

And a few other waterfowl:

Black Swan

New Zealand Scaup

This may be a Grey duck (Pacific black duck) but it also may be a hybrid with a mallard. Certainly it was hanging out with the mallards

Grey duck?

Later in the day we drove out to the Mount Ffyfe Forest Walk.  It was a nice country drive.  We got stopped twice while herds of dairy cows were crossing the road for the milking.  They were long waits with over 100 cows.

We climbed a style and crossed a field

Albatross Experience

 We got up early to take the albatross tour, so early we had trouble finding the tour office in the dark.  It was touch and go whether we'd be able to go out after yesterday's bad weather but we got the all clear.

We drove to the put in to find our boat perched on a trailer. A tracker towed it to the beach with us in it then launched the boat.

We took off just as the sun was coming up.  Our pilot drove  us out about 15 minutes to a fishing boat that already had seabirds following it.  

 

Our pilot threw out some bait and 

Feeding frenzy!

Our boat was quite small so we were able to sit out on the back deck and almost reach out and touch the birds.

This wandering albatross was the top of the food chain.

The northern giant petrels (lifer, we saw Southern giant petrels in Chile) were very aggressive and the wandering albatross occasionally had to give a petrol a nip to maintain the pecking order.  We enjoyed watching the antics of the giant petrels.

Northern giant petrol and wandering albatross going after the bait

Other petrelsshowed up including northern and southern royal petrels, white-capped albatross and this Salvin's albatross:

The bird with mottled plumage next to the wandering albatross is a cape petrel (lifer):

Close-up of a giant petrel:

Acting goofy:

These are white-chinned petrels (lifers):

In this close-up you can see the white chin.

Later we cruised by a fur seal colony. We also went looking for yellow-eyed penguins, but no luck there as they are now mounting.  

Other birds seen: Australasian gannet, kelp and silver gulls, 

By the end of the tour the effects of the Gravol were wearing off so we headed back to the campground for a nap.

Kaikoura

Our next destination was Kaikoura.  From Waipara we headed north, stopping at the next town, Cheviot, for gas and have a snack at the Cheviot tearooms.

Leo hadvthe down under favorite, lamington cake and I had a very sweet coffee walnut slice (about 1/2 icing so very sweet).

Then it was on up Highway 1 past cattle and sheep farms, up into the hills and then following the windy coast and through tunnels for 2 hours.  We checked in at the Kaikoura Top Ten Holiday Park.

Kaikwoura was a bustling tourist town and the campground was full of locals and internationals for the weekend.

It's just a short walk from the campground to the centre of town

Invasive but pretty lupines

And the beach is just across the main street.

We walked down to the Albatross Experience office to reserve an albatross boat tour.  We stopped for a tea in their bright cafe.

Meanwhile the weather was getting stormier.

A Japanese couple were trying to change a flat tire in the weather so Leo helped with the tire while another fellow helped them contact their rental company with the aid of  Google Translate.

The Miami Beach of New Zealand

Back at the campground people's tents were flying around. Leo helped a couple take theirs down.  They moved it in close to a hedge. Later in the evening we walked down to the beach.

The beach was very loose cobble and hard to walk on.

Let's call this silver gull (red-billed gull) the Bird of the Day!