Metro Plus
Bangalore
Chennai
Hyderabad
A whale of a time
|
Our traveller gets a good look at New Zealand and its sea-life
|
I've never really been a good map-reader... you know, the kind of person who can glance at a directional diagram and transform it into 3D in his mind and relate to the place he is in with reference to that map.
But my muddling with maps was inconsequential because I really didn't need a map to find my way from Christchurch to Kaikoura in New Zealand. The streets and junctions are so lucidly signposted that within 15 minutes, I had negotiated my way from the city centre to SH1 and was pointing the nose of the Toyota RAV4 north, towards Kaikoura.
The south islands' SH1 (State Highway 1) runs through some of Canterbury's most famous vineyards and one of these is the Pegasus Bay Winery in Waipara. When I arrived fresh and early at 9 am, I found the winemaker in bed - it was harvest time and he's been pampering his grapes all night through. These early stages are very important and play a huge role in the quality and finesse of the end product. But one of the staff did manage to give me a wine tasting and I found the Riesling most appealing, quite as well because that is the wine recommended for spicy Asian food.
The Pacific Ocean burst into sight as I negotiated the last of the corners coming down from the hills into the seaside town of Kaikoura. A mesmerising deep blue and my foot instinctively jabbed the throttle a little more. The auto `box of the RAV4 shifted down as the car surged forward, but I had to rein her in because I was already at a 100kph and that is the maximum permissible speed here.
Kaikoura's claim to fame is its seaside and offshore residents - namely seals and whales. While the seals can be seen by the dozens at the seal colony or the Ohahu viewpoint and waterfall, the whales are a little further from shore, beyond the point where the seabed drops down from 40 metres to almost 1,400 meters!
The next morning, I checked into the Whale Watch Terminal. This company operates three vessels fitted with special tracking and listening devices that can pinpoint the location of a whale.
Once on the boat, the guide ran us through the safety briefing and then proceeded to explain how we'd get to see the whales.
The powerful microphone on the boats can pick up sound from 3 km away and the sound that the pilot was listening for was similar to the clicking of fingers. Once he picked that up, the boat's directional device told him where the whale was and he opened up the throttle and headed there.
Meanwhile, other crew on top of the boat were looking out for the telltale fountain as a whale exhales, and as we neared the approximate location, there it was.
The sight of a whale in real life can make you blink in disbelief - and this guy, at 20 metres long, was supposed to be `average sized' - he was longer than out boat. He'd been feeding at the bottom and now had surfaced for air. We were all of course waiting for that characteristic move as he flexed his back, threw up his tail and dived back to the bottom to continue feeding. That happened 28 minutes later and as the tail came up like a big sail, breaking the surface, I could here the rapid clicking of cameras as everyone went into a frenzy to capture that graceful manoeuvre of the world's largest sea mammal.
That one sight alone made it worth visiting this South Pacific island nation and this was just my second day here!
Come back to these pages next week for more, as I make my way around New Zealand.
Check out www.whalewatch.co.nz to know more about whale-watching trips in Kaikoura
RISHAD SAAM MEHTA
Printer friendly
page
Send this article to Friends by
E-Mail
Metro Plus
Bangalore
Chennai
Hyderabad
|
