baby seals, wineries, and chocolate! life is good!

Sunday July 12

The draw to Kaikoura is the marine life. There is good fishing, lots of whales and dolphins, and tons and tons of seals. In the summer you can actually go swimming with seals- which seems a bit sketchy to me. It might be all those years of watching Animal Planet and how they say "anywhere you find large groups of seals, there you'll find sharks feeding on them". Sure enough, upon further reading I also found out you can go cage diving with sharks just off the coast. I decided to keep both feet firmly on land.

We did drive along the coast to a seal colony where the giant blubbery animals were just feet away snoozing and playing in the water. We did a lot of aawing and squealing and watched them frolic and galumph about. However, we had a tip for an even better place about 20 min up the coast.

It was another rainy morning but the coastline was gorgeous with crashing waves and further along black beaches. It reminded me a lot of driving down Stuart Highway to the Kenia Peninsula- especially one bit that had train tracks on the edge of the bluff next to the ocean.
We stopped at Ohau and walked for about 10 min to a waterfall, and what we found was almost too good to believe. Under this beautiful fall was a pool full of seal pups jumping and playing and swimming about. It was like seal kindergarten. There weren't any adults around, and all the pups have to climb upstream to get here, but apparently they do it for about 4 months every year. It really was one of the best things either Tiffany or I have ever seen. It's pretty impossible to describe the cuteness factor of 50 baby seals playing in a pool, combined with the fact that it's under a giant waterfall. It's definitely in the Top 10 list.
To make the day even better we passed through the Marlborough wine region in the early afternoon and did

 a self guided (aka "this one looks nice") wine tour. The first stop was Montana, who's export label is

 Stoneleigh, and they had some really wonderful wines. The region is best known for their Sauvignon Blanc, and their Pinot Noir is also gaining acclaim. These, along with the 7 or so others that the wonderful Robin poured for us, were excellent- and about $40 a bottle, an additional $240 if you wanted a case shipped back to the States! So we were happy with our free tasting. (Tiffany was the afternoon driver and was very responsible about everything, utilizing the spit bucket).

We drove around for a while and found ourselves at Nautilus, a much smaller winery and cellar door. Sara

 was pouring and we were the only ones in there and became fast friends with her. Tiffany had asked her about the SPCA down the road and she told us an involved story of finding a stray cat and sharing her

 sausage roll with it and going back to rescue it later and having it reunited with it's family. She also told us she only worked once a fortnight so she could get her wine discount and the good biscuits the place provided. She actually just did it to get out of the house and talk to people because she's a full time mom at the moment and her 1 year old loves to chew on the iron table legs as well as shoes. She was amazing.

We went to a chocolate place- free samples!- and Saint Clair's, the only NZ winery to be named to the top 100 wineries by some prestigious list. Clearly, Tif and I know hope to pick em!
We finally rolled into The Villa in Picton full and happy. We chose to stay here because they offered free apple crisp at 8pm in the winter. It turns out Stray bus had the same idea because they stay here as well. It worked out really well because we met one guy that was joining the tour the next day with us and 6 people that had been on the bus since Christchurch. Everyone was really friendly and we didn't have any trouble getting in with the group which took any stress out of joining the next day.