New Zealand - Nov 24, 2008 - Logan

Logan Mitchell
Date: 11-24-2008
Location: Dolphin Lodge, Kaikoura
Time: 10pm
Latitude: 42°24'14.08"S
Longitude: 173°40'57.40"E
Elevation: ~20 m
Wind speed: ~40-60 mph
Precipitation: heavy in the morning
Animals:
Breakfast: Musli & other leftover food
Lunch: Tuna and crackers
Supper: Fish & Chips

Last night it rained a lot! Spruce and I were sleeping in bivy sacks under a tarp and although we weren’t getting rained on directly, our bivy sacks were getting wet from the rain drops splashes. By the morning I realized that my bivy sack is no longer waterproof because my sleeping pad and sleeping bag were damp. At 10am we caught our scheduled Water Taxi (just a boat that takes people from beach to beach in this National Park) back to where our car was parked. Very convenient!! The first order of business was getting dry and then I drove us back to Kaikoura. Driving in New Zealand is a lot of fun because there are great roads, great scenery, and you drive on the left side of the road. I have some practice at this from when I lived in Nepal, but even so it took a few minutes to get used to it. The most common mistake is to turn on the windshield wipers instead of the blinker because they are on opposite sides. On our way to Kaikoura we stopped at the Ohau Point seal colony roadside pullout. There were at least a hundred seals hanging out on the rocks here! The greatest part was that there was a fairly large tidepool that was about the size of a small pool or a large hot tub where the juvenile seals would wrestle and play around a lot and just cause a ruckus. When we got to Kaikoura the wind had really picked up to about 40-60 mph and there were huge 10-12’ waves crashing on a sandy beach! It was very beautiful and also intimidating at the same time. Tomorrow we are supposed to swim with the dolphins, but I’m not quite sure if it will happen since the sea is so rough.