Christchurch to Kaikoura

I didn’t get a great sleep last night, so was pretty tired today. First was a hike up the Bridle Path to Christchurch’s local peak. Again there is a gondola up but we chose to walk it. The views across Christchurch to the mountains in the distance, and to Lytellton the opposite direction were pretty spectacular. The weather was again brilliant, it was meant to break at 11 but happily didn’t. The hike itself wasn’t anything significant, just a pretty steep gravelly path up to a ridge then over to the upper gondola station for the excellent views. 

View to Lytellton from the Bridle Path

After returning to earth we headed on an unremarkable 2 hour drive North to Kaikoura, the whale watching/marine life capital of New Zealand (I’ve made this up, but it’s probably true). We wanted to do another walk before settling in at the campsite so headed first to the Kaikoura Peninsula Walkway. As the name suggests it’s a walk across the end of the Kaikoura peninsula. There’s loads of seals dozing on the rocks and thousands of seabirds nesting, at one point we must have accidentally strayed into what must have been a couple of chubby black birds nesting area (looked a bit like a kiwi, but most likely not) and were angrily chased off. The path took us up to the cliff tops from which we could survey the land, before cutting down onto the rocky outcrops at the base of the cliffs to return via the waterfront. Very pretty, very fishy smelling, many sleeping seals. 

Very angry birds

Just 10 minutes up the road was the Kaikoura Top10 campground which is our base for tonight and tomorrow. Looking forward to getting an early night tonight for whale watching tomorrow.