Kaikura Saturday 5th March.

A beautiful day dawned so we decided to spend the day exploring Kaikura.Before we left we chatted to our neighbour, a Frenchman living in Bora Bora, it gave me a chance to practise my French which had become somewht rusty over the last couple of months. I had been in two minds about visiting Kaikura as it is famous for whales and dolphiins and there are many trips to sea to see them. As it happened we found it was a lovely little town that doesn't seem to have let it's fame go to it's head! http://www.kaikoura.co.nz/
We drove the van into town and parked up and walked along the beach for a while, it was getting very hot and we realised that we would have quite a walk to the town centre so decided to go back to the van and find somewhere else to park. Just before we got back to the van we saw a sign pointing to the seal rocks a short way down the coast so we decided to go and have a look there first. When we got there the tide was out and we saw a notice saying that any seals lying on the rocks had not to be disturbed and not to get closer than 10 metres to them. There was quite a crowd of people and just one seal flaunting him/herself in front of the cameras, he was very photogenic and seemed not to mind all the attention being lavished on him! After watching him for a while we walked along the shoreline composed of large, flat rocks for a while before returning to the car park. We then followed the footpath signs and walked up the cliff and across the fields at the cliff top getting a good view of the sea and shore. It really was a hot day now and we decided to go back to the van and head into town for some lunch. We cruised through the town and found a good parking place just a short walk into town where we had lunch at a Thai restaurant. I then spent a lot of time in a couple of gift shops buying presents for friends and myself mainly things made from my favourite Paua shell which is found in abundance in the waters in Kaikura. The weather was changing quickly, dark clouds were threatening as we got back to the campsite and it was soon raining heavily.