EC-Rider Travels

I got up early as Chid had kindly said that he would take me on a quick tour of (some) his farm. It was a beautiful day and we headed off up our already familiar track up the hill. We were tight on time so we only had time to travel about a quarter of the 120km length of Chid’s farm. We soon passed where Mum and I had turned round and continued on around extraordinary steep hills along a narrow road that Chid had built (along precipices) a few years back. I was very pleased he was driving and not me. We saw a few of his many Marino sheep and beautiful beef cattle and also many, many beehives which has become another major element of his farming. His land has large quantities of manuka which of course greatly increases the value of the honey. After about forty minutes we reached the first of his ‘stations’ where some of his workers live for much of the year. Not a lot of pubs and social life out here! The hill overlooking the station was also where his daughter Amanda got married – must have been quite something.

We returned in time for a quick breakfast where we were joined by Chid and Sue’s charming son Hamish and his two little girls. Hamish has recently done a house-swap with his parents and is now helping to run the farm. A very special guy who I wish we had had more time to get to know, however we had a whale date, so we bid them all goodbye and headed for Kaikoura for our whale watching trip.

We checked in at the Whaleway Station and were taken by bus to join our boat. There were about 100 people on the boat from every possible country. We headed out, not over the smoothest sea, to find our whales. Before long the first whale was sighted which Mum and I were lucky enough to catch a glimpse but unfortunately it then headed under water. The lady Captain Milena, then came down to the deck to listen out for whales. She had the most hysterical heath-Robinson type contraption of a long pole held together with electrical tape and a cone shaped horn on the end, into which she plugged what looked like her earphones off the aeroplane – but it seemed to work and she could apparently detect the whales up to three miles away.

Before long whales were sighted and Capt Milena put her foot down and off we sped. It was very exciting and we were lucky enough to see two more whales who remained on the surface for some time. The whales are known by name and usually recognised by their tails. We saw Manu (14.65m long, first spotted in 1991) which everyone was very excited about as he had not been seen for some time. Manu means bird in Māori, and he is named after the bird shape in his tail. We then saw Tiaki (15.45m long first recorded in 1994), which means protection, a name he was given after he was seen coming to the rescue of a young sperm whale being attacked by an orca. One of the young crew members was called Tiaki, named by his father who witnessed this act.

Though it is possible to see several different species, we only saw male sperm whales, apparently the girls don’t come in this close to shore as they don’t approve of the cold water temperature!

Sperm whales can reach up to 18m in length, a third of which is the head with the largest brain of any creature on Earth. The males weigh up to 53 tons and can live up to 70 years. Females reach sexual maturity at nine and usually give birth every five years to one calf. They are pregnant for 14-16 months. Males don’s reach sexual maturity until their late twenties and full physical maturity until about 50. Their name is due to the waxy substance, spermaceti, found in their heads which is an oil sac that helps them focus sound.

We also saw a number of seals bouncing around the boat and perhaps most special of all several albatross. Sadly I could not get a photo. It was a truly amazing experience.

We had a spoiling lunch of crayfish (lobster) with Mary and Bob Kingscote in their lovely house overlooking Kaikoura and then drove on a further hour or so south to just beyond Cheviot to stay with Susie and Paul Shield. Susie is Chid’s sister (second cousin of Mum’s) and her mother, Annie Murray, was Mum’s Godmother having come to England at the end of the war to look after her as a baby. Susie had also been a nanny to Amanda, Tim and me about fifty two years ago! A lot to catch-up on which we did over a delicious supper with them both.