Once upon a time there was somebody, that insisted that I should visit Kaikoura and because the bus to the Fox glacier was booked out we simply booked one here. The bus drive wasn’t just a scenic one but due to our very informative bus driver also extremely entertaining. One of the things we learned: in Maori kai means food and koura means crayfish, a delicacy in Kaikoura.
Kaikoura itself is a chain of small wooden houses along the coast north of Kaikoura peninsula. Nice and quite a good place to dropout from traveling a couple if hours or days.

Walking around the peninsula in low tide reveals some funny shore features.

But the real reason why tourist come to Kaikoura is to meet the marine locals. Fur seals, dolphins and whales. We opted for the close to the shore (the sea and I are still not best friends) swimming with seals, which is actual snorkeling. We only met a few seals, but it was a fun trip only for the snorkeling itself and 45 min in the water was more than enough to cool our body temperature to the point of deep blue lips