{"id":16580,"date":"2023-09-25T17:37:00","date_gmt":"2023-09-25T21:37:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/agaaga.khoolbrew.ca\/?p=16580"},"modified":"2025-03-17T20:35:43","modified_gmt":"2025-03-18T00:35:43","slug":"whale-watching-in-new-zealand","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/agaaga.khoolbrew.ca\/index.php\/2023\/09\/25\/whale-watching-in-new-zealand\/","title":{"rendered":"Whale Watching in New Zealand"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Winter in New Zealand (June to August) are supposed to be the best months for whale watching. The Kaikoura peninsula, on the northeastern coast of the South Island, has some of the deepest waters in New Zealand. Because of this, there’s tons of food, and so the area has whale watching all year round. We were on the Kaikoura peninsula in spring (end of September) and booked a whale watching flight with Air Kaikoura<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Our plane was a GA-8 Airvans, which can seat 8, including the pilots, and it was a private tour.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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The peninsula protrudes 5 km into the South Pacific ocean, and there’s an underwater canyon about 800 m off the coast that is over 1,200 m deep. The Maori people have lived here for about a thousand years; and the Europeans began settling on the peninsula for whaling in the 1800s. Whaling continued until it was banned around the 1920s.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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The name of the town is made up of two Maori words meaning eat (kai<\/em>) and crayfish (koura<\/em>). The land on the peninsula is now used mostly for cattle, sheep, and deer farming.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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We did the Kaikoura Peninsula Walkway along the coastline on another day. From the air, you can’t see all the seals and seabirds.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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View of the layered limestone terraces that have been exposed by tectonic movement. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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The rock at the top of the cliffs is the oldest while the rock appearing at the shoreline is the youngest.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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We then fly away from land to search for sperm whales, the largest toothed predators. The pilot explained that their pattern is diving for about 40 minutes to feed on giant squid in the deeper waters. The whales then surface, spout water, and re-oxygenate for about 5 minutes before diving again. Sometimes you can spot scars on the whales from the giant squid, which can be 10-13 metres long, fighting back. Ambergris is an aggregate of undigested squid parts (beaks and mantles) that’s been regurgitated by some sperm whales. It’s used in the west in perfumes, and in the east for medication. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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After much searching, we managed to see the tail of this sperm whale before it headed back to the deep. Since the flight is only 40 minutes and it’s not possible to predict where the sperm whales would re-surface, it was our only opportunity to see them.
Photo by Nolan.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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We also saw a small pod of dusky dolphins – in the summer time, a pod can have hundreds of dolphins. Dusky dolphins are very playful and intelligent.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Our other sighting was of a fellow whale watcher in a different vehicle.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Spot our landing strip!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Since Felix was on the opposite side of the whale and didn’t see it, the pilot offered to let him fly the next day since there was a seat free. However, since there was very minimal chance of seeing a whale the next morning, Felix declined to go. Nolan went instead, just to be in the air. Neil mentioned that Nolan wanted to be a pilot so he got to sit up front in the co-pilot’s seat! No whale or other sightings on that flight.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Winter in New Zealand (June to August) are supposed to be the best months for whale watching. The Kaikoura peninsula, on the northeastern coast of the South Island, has some of the deepest waters in New Zealand. Because of this, there’s tons of food, and so the area has whale watching all year round. We […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":16594,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[49,72],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16580","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-internationaltravel","category-new-zealand"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/agaaga.khoolbrew.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/IMG_2011.HEIC-scaled.webp?fit=2560%2C1920&ssl=1","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/agaaga.khoolbrew.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16580","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/agaaga.khoolbrew.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/agaaga.khoolbrew.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agaaga.khoolbrew.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agaaga.khoolbrew.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16580"}],"version-history":[{"count":54,"href":"https:\/\/agaaga.khoolbrew.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16580\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16847,"href":"https:\/\/agaaga.khoolbrew.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16580\/revisions\/16847"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agaaga.khoolbrew.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16594"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/agaaga.khoolbrew.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16580"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agaaga.khoolbrew.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16580"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agaaga.khoolbrew.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16580"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}