The flight for Whales!

okay, we joined up with another bus (Kiwi) this morning and headed for Kaikoura. can i just tell you this is my favorite place for sure so far!!!!!!!!!!! too bad we just have one night here. we are on the east coast of the northern part of the south island. it has the mountains and the green hills and the turquoise ocean all together in one scene! i absolutely love it! this is why i came to new zealand! i found the green hills and the cliffs falling into the ocean without the rain! okay, so the things to do here are to swim with dolphins or to see whales. we figured it is just too cold to swim with the dolphins, although i was willing to sacrifice warmth to do it. julie just could not. she really wanted to see whales. i have seen whales before, but wanted us to do something together. well, usually the whale watching is by boat. i had just gotten really carsick from the bus, and didn't know how i could do a boat. to my surprise, i saw a sign on the road for "Wings over Whales." basically, it was an advertisement for a company that takes small crop duster planes over the ocean to see whales. i checked into it and the price was the same for the boat. we totally agreed that it would be so scenic to see whales by plane! so we did it!!!!!!!!!!!!

i cannot believe that we were just in a little 6 seater plane today looking for whales. the sad part is that most of the whales have migrated to warmer waters. we were hoping to see one of the sperm whales that is always here, but we didn't. i was so enthralled with the flight, that i was okay with missing the whales. julie truly enjoyed the flight too, so we aren't upset at the loss. actually, we are blessed, b/c they gave us a voucher for the "next time we are here to go for free." okay, so can i come back? soon? :)

after the "whale" watching or water watching, we headed back to Adelphi Lodge. we love this place. it has a lot of character for a place for lodging. okay, so i also saw a sign for "Horseback rides at Sunset." julie has been begging me to go horseback riding ever since Thailand. it was perfect. we only have today and tonight here and since the horseback ride was at sunset we could do it right after we finished flying.