The main thing today was a sea-bird cruise out of Kaikoura. We made an easy transition from Christchurch,
View Larger Map
seeing nice scenery as usual,
and stopping at a farmer's market.
It was their first market of the year. It was pretty small; it made the Friday Harbor market look big-time. But Marian found a nice bottle of sipping wine, and we got some very nice snow peas and a couple of meat pies.
Quite noticeable as we got toward Kaikoura was the curse of Gorse and Broom. They have both, and both compete to dominate any unused land.
At Kaikoura we joined a tour in a small boat out to look at sea birds. They toss out a lump of "albatross ice cream" (frozen fish lumps) on a line to bait the birds which then come in close and squabble.
The main birds we saw were these:
Salvan's Albatross
Wandering Albatross
New Zealand White Albatross
The aggressive and noisy Giant Petrel
One rather aloof Royal Albatross
The Westlands Petrel
Then into camp to work on the pictures from the Aoroki day and then these, and planning the remaining days of the tour, and we both began to feel somewhat harried and over-worked by the responsibility of having a good time. So tomorrow will be a slow start and easy day.
No comments:
Post a Comment