Kaikoura to Blenheim for Marlborough Wine & Food Festival

We arrived in Kaikoura on 6th for our whale watch boat tour but it was cancelled due to the weather.
We wandered round Kaikoura and bought rummikub from the charity shop and played it in the van.

Chris got a call from a recruitment company asking if he could get to Christchurch on Thursday for a chat with a potential company. As we were only about 2 hours away we decided to go.
We drove to Christchurch and stayed in New Brighton near the beach.
We did jobs and stocked up in Christchurch in the morning and after Chris’ interview headed back up the coast towards Kaikoura. We camped about 45mins south of it.

In the morning we drove back to Kaikoura as we had booked a flight instead of a boat tour to see the whales. It was a beautiful day and as we were driving around the peninsular we spotted some orca off the coast!

The flight was amazing, it was only 40mins but we saw a sperm whale, orca and dolphins. The place is tiny, there was only 4 of us and the pilot flys down to 150m above the ocean so you get a great birds eye view! Would definitely recommend this rather than a boat trip.

After the flight we continued driving north towards Blenheim. We camped out in a field near the malborough wine and food festival, there was a bbq and we had an early night ready for a day of drinking and eating on Saturday.

The festival was great, another beautiful day. Lots of wine and good food and music too, our favourite band was the Vanuatan string band. It finished at 6.30pm and we spent the evening chilling out in the van.