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Other entries in Kaikoura

By the sea, by the sea, by the beautiful sea...

Kaikoura is a beautiful, but highly touristy town. It took some doing to get accommodation, though we happily did wind up staying in a great place. We went on a really interesting Maori tour, during the course of which we learned a song in Maori as well as how to weave flax and how to distinguish edible and medicinally useful NZ plants. The guy running the tour was the great-grandson of a major chief, as well as the direct descendant of one of the chiefs who signed the treaty of Waitangi. Halfway through the tour he took us back to his house for afternoon tea (better food than we'd eaten in some time) and we met his family. The tour was better than I'm making it sound. Anyway, the following morning we went whale-watching. The seas were quite choppy, and there were a LOT of people vomiting around us, which made the ride kind of unpleasant (it was well-controlled though; there was a guy going around picking up used barf bags and handing out glasses of water). Even Matt looked a bit green after an hour or so (Cat was feeling a little sick too, but she had taken Gravol and so was in better shape than most of the other passengers). It took ages to find a whale, but we finally got one just before the captain was about to give up and head back to the dock. It was a huge, beautiful sperm whale who was on the surface for about seven minutes before slapping the water with his tail in a big wave and then disappearing back down below. Even the sickest of the passengers looked pretty impressed.

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