Today’s photos were taken as far from the drumlin as you can get. Australia’s kangaroos and koalas weren’t our final goals. My husband and I actually spent most of our holiday in New Zealand. It was the kind of trip where you see something new every day. From a long list of spectacular sights, I’ve picked three highlights for the blog, starting with Kaikoura, on the east coast of the South Island.
We may be the only tourists who failed to see a single whale in Kaikoura. But we made up for that with sightings of dusky dolphins, Hector’s dolphins and New Zealand fur seals.
The Pacific coast in and around Kaikoura is home to many seals, easily spotted when they are lying on the rocks. The pups in the next photo were a lot more active and bouncy than the adults.
If anyone asks you “Do seals have tongues?” or “Do seals have ears?”, send them to this blog to prove that the answer is YES, at least for the Kaikoura fur seals. Here is proof of the tongue.
I can also tell you that we spent a happy hour watching seal pups play in a freshwater pool below a waterfall – no photos for the blog unfortunately.
If you ever make it to Kaikoura, I have a great recommendation for accommodation – just follow this link to find out more about The Factory.
Distant Drumlin 
Glorious! I doubt I’ll ever make it there myself…
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It’s a very, very long way from Europe. I’m still recovering from the jetlag.
Hope the New Year has got off to a good start for you, whether you are still in snowy Germany, or back in Spain.
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Still in Germany. As proven by today’s post 🙂
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Just been over to your blog, and all I can say is WOW.
Distant Drumlin readers, you are all commanded to visit Lady of the Cakes, who blogs from Narnia.
http://ladyofthecakes.wordpress.com/
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LOL, thanks for the plug 🙂
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What a fantastic trip! It’s on my bucket list to go. Glad you both were able to take a trip there. And your pictures just keep getting better and better!
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Happy New Year Glynns! I guarantee that you will love NZ.
I took 2600 photos, many of which are just water (where I missed the dolphins) or sky (where I missed the albatross) or flat grey liquid (where I missed the bubbling mud). But there are a few good ones.
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What an incredible view! These pictures really got me jealous 🙂
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Just wait, two more sets of NZ pictures to come, to make you even more jealous.
But really, I wish you a very happy New Year!
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I was there! It’s amazing! Looking forward to seeing what else you focus on! There are so many stunning places in NZ.
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What were the highlights for you?
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Skydive over Lake Taupo, Queenstown, Milford Sound – twice as we crashed the car in the snow on the first run 🙂 I had some pretty good times living in Auckland and Wellington as well! 🙂
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So you lived there? And you decided people were just too friendly and you moved to Latvia in search of grumpy people?
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Exactly 🙂 Yeah, I lived there for a year – and in Oz too. I preferred Australia though I think! Then it was back to Ireland, then to Poland, then to Latvia 😉
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Beautiful pics!
I have never seen seals in real life. I hope to be able to do so some day…
Happy new year to you and yours! 🙂
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Thank you…and a Happy New Year to you too.
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It is one of the best places in the world. I did the Albatross Encounter twice, the big ship for whales once and then chartered a small aircraft as there was a Southern Right Whale and calf inshore. It is simply heavenly. How can you NOT see a whale 😦
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I’ve just spent the last half hour catching up with your blog. You must have fallen off my WP Reader list, so I missed your op, your move, everything. So belatedly I wish you and your family a very happy and healthy New Year.
And my recommendation – if you can’t move to Kaikoura, choose Northern Ireland. We have loads of green space and birds.
Do you have any Albatross Encounter photos on your blog? Mine are coming up in the next post.
Our whale fail was a helicopter trip. We had a couple of bookings for the big whale boat, both cancelled because of rough seas. So we cut our losses and went for the more co-operative birds and seals and the golf course.
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Karolyn, I went in 2006, long before the blog. I may have some photos on other sites. I’ll see if I can find them.
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Here is an old gallery of NZ images Karolyn
It is sad how poor the quality is but digital has moved on since then. I’d love to go back and retake them today.
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I looked through your Flickr gallery – thank you for the link. It was great to see some of the same species of birds that I saw on my Albatross Encounter. And I loved seeing the pied stilts in flight. I saw two stilts in Rotorua, and I took photos of them standing on some ground in the Hell’s Gate Thermal Park which was probably about to start bubbling. They looked cute with their long skinny legs, and it was hard to imagine them flying. Good to know from your photo that they look graceful in the air.
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The seals are so sleek and oddly beautiful!! What a fabulous trip!!
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It really was fabulous. And (with no disrespect to India) it’s lovely to travel somewhere so clean and healthy. We drank water from the tap, indulged in so much creamy dairy produce from milk to yoghurt to chocolate, walked outside at night without fear of insects, snakes or scorpions, and drove our rental cars along quiet, pothole-free roads.
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Haha! Love it! I always feel faintly seditious when traveling to a place where I can drink water straight from the tap! 🙂
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The seals are great! Now I know what a seal tongue looks like 🙂 Anxiously awaiting more of your stunning pix!
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Thank you. I’ve just been over to your site, and enjoyed your post on The Tea Man. You’re just wrong about Earl Grey – it’s delicious. It’s my tea of choice between about 10am and 5pm. But I start the day with Japanese green tea.
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De gustibus non est disputandum; there is no arguing over taste! Earl Grey reminds me of Jasmine tea, which is also over-perfumed IMO. But maybe a lighter version would not set me off. As for Japanese green tea, lovely! I am pondering a post on green tea, which is equally as fascinating as black. And then there’s oolong 🙂
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I look forward to the post on green tea. Just keep away from oolong, and definitely avoid Pu-Er Tea. It’s the worst tea in the world.
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Ha, ha! Well, it looks like horse droppings. Maybe that’s a sign.
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Envy! Envy! Can’t believe you got to NZ from England, and I can’t manage to get there from Fiji! (Also still envious about your great photos of wildlife! …. obviously I didn’t make a New Year resolution about conquering envy… maybe next year). Austin and I are planning to go to NZ in August – I hope that works out. A big New Year HUG for you.
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I hope you get to NZ in August. Have you been there before?
Our journey seemed to go on forever. On the way south, we broke it up, with a week in Hong Kong. And on the way north we spent a few days in Australia. It still took me about 3 weeks to get over the jetlag. So you absolutely must take advantage of living in Fiji to explore New Zealand and the South Pacific. Are you in the same time zone as NZ?
Thank you for the kind comment on the photos. Seals are pretty co-operative subjects – big and slow-moving on land. The next post has some birds, which were more of a challenge.
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Love those close up photos of the seals! I had never even considered if a seal has a tongue or not:) Looks like a great holiday!
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It was a fabulous holiday. If only New Zealand wasn’t SO far away, I would be back there tomorrow. I’ve got one more post on New Zealand scheduled for tomorrow, then I must start taking photos of London again.
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