Spent two nights in Kaikoura before moving on to Christchurch. The Kaikoura Peninsula Walkway is a great way to watch the abundance of marine life and take in the coastal views. I don't remember the exact route we took but I know we must have walked a long way because we passed the Fyffe House towards the end. The walkway is well sign-posted and there are informative signboards at key locations.

Parts of the walkway cross private land. We hit a very muddy stretch at the beginning but soon forgot about our wet feet.


牛西兰


Limestone Bay


Black-billed gulls are found only in NZ and are the most threatened gull species in the world.


Fishing in a canoe - one of the three pouwhenua (wooden post) at South Bay


The rainbow we saw earlier appeared again at the intersection of Scarborough St and South Bay track


It was still visible in the far distance when we stopped for a bite at South Bay viewpoint


Free as a bird~


No idea how did we veer off the main track we went ahead anyway and it led us to a colony of wild seals.


Aper?


Seals spend most of their time resting on the rocky shores in the winter.


They weren't moving or making noise it was best to keep a distance and leave them alone.


Army of seals


We had enough of seals for the day and decided it was time to head back but didn't know how. There were no signs so we just continued walking until we saw this track up a hill.


This was way more difficult than I thought. It was a very sharp ascent and turned out to be a spiderman climb on all fours.


I was struggling because my beanie kept slipping over my eyes, I couldn't see what's ahead and couldn't look down either. I couldn't hold my beanie in my hand because my hands were grabbing the grass at the sides. Ended up stuffing the beanie in my coat even though I was already so hot and sweating inside. I was a clumsy spiderman in the wrong attire!


It was only after I made it to the top that I realised how freaking long and steep the cliff was. (Jaw drop)


Kaikoura means eat crayfish in Maori. We were quite looking forward to this especially after walking 5 hours. It was quite expensive so we shared a half lobster meal that comes with bread, rice, fish fillet and salad.


In Kaikoura, hostels are named after marine life. There's Dolphin Lodge, Fish Tank, Bad Jelly, Lazy Shag (a bird). We chose Albatross because it was the highest rated BBH hostel in Kaikoura at that time. They had many woofers even during winter but they don’t seem to change bedsheets…?