New Zealand, Kaikoura – a post about dreams coming true

Time for a post about dreams coming true. Hard to believe, but New Zealand for me was never the goal itself. In fact, this dream was born eight years earlier, in Hawaii. Quite by accident, during one of the boat trips, I found out that I had been this close to seeing whales.
Well, not exactly close — more like a seven-mile step away, because I should have planned my trip six months later. That dream was promptly added to my bucket list and filed away in a drawer labelled “long-term”.

Until the day tickets to New Zealand landed in my inbox. And then it was clear: now or never. I started planning the trip by checking one crucial thing — whether my path and the whales’ path could finally cross. The answer was Kaikoura.

Why Kaikoura is a whale-themed Disneyland

Let’s start with the name. “Kaikoura” comes from kai (to eat) and koura (crayfish). So right away you know what this place is about: food. And rightly so, because Kaikoura is basically an oceanic all-you-can-eat buffet. It wasn’t always this wholesome. Until 1964, Kaikoura was a whaling station. The hunting was so efficient that whales simply started running out, and the business died. Quite literally. Today, Kaikoura is exceptional mainly thanks to the Kaikoura Canyon — over 1,000 metres deep and located practically right off the coast. Cold currents from the south collide with warmer ones from the north, mixing an oceanic cocktail and pushing huge amounts of nutrients to the surface.
The result? An all-inclusive canteen for marine life — whales included.

That’s why Kaikoura is one of the best places in the world for whale watching. It’s one of the few places where sperm whales live year-round, with humpbacks, orcas, long-finned whales, blue whales and other XXL-category creatures dropping by seasonally.

Life is not a film

The first whale I saw on the trip was a sperm whale. It surfaced, took a few calm breaths… and disappeared with grace. That was it. A moment later, my eight-year-old dream collapsed like a house of cards. Because in my head I had a Free Willy poster moment: breaches, fountains of water, dramatic music. Instead, I got a brief glimpse of a fin.

Sperm whales are 15–20 metres long, weigh 40–60 tonnes and surface roughly every 45–55 minutes to breathe. They take a few solid breaths, shoot a one-metre plume into the air, and vanish back underwater. And when they dive, they don’t mess about — over 3,000 metres down. Breath-holding records? More than two hours.

Inside their heads is over a tonne of spermaceti, an oily substance used for echolocation and buoyancy control. Humans once used it to make lubricants, creams and lipsticks.
And ambergris — a luxury perfume ingredient? That comes from the intestines of sick or dead sperm whales.

The show of a lifetime

As I stood there staring at the ocean in mild resignation, a sightseeing helicopter suddenly roared overhead and the boat picked up speed. In the distance, I saw a plume of water. The cause of all the excitement? A humpback whale. What followed was an hour-long acrobatic performance.

The humpback danced around our boat for so long that my arm hurt from holding the camera. Eventually, I gave up. I put the camera down and it was just me and the whale. No photos. No chasing the perfect shot. Just a moment meant to be lived, not documented.

What I saw was extraordinary. It looked like a dance — and if whales can dance, this one was the Fred Astaire of the ocean 😀

Dolphins on performance enhancers

Just when I thought the adventure was over, the boat sailed straight into a pod of dolphins.
Not a few. Hundreds… They were jumping, racing the boat, playing. The dusky dolphins were completely unhinged — impossible to capture on camera. Pure chaos. Pure joy.

Kaikoura delivers on land too

On the way back to Christchurch, I stopped by the Kaikoura Peninsula Walkway. Ocean in the distance, mountains in the background, and seals lounging on the shore — entirely uninterested in humans.

Who to go whale watching with?

I chose Whale Watch Kaikoura, boasting a 95% success rate.
The trip lasts about 3.5 hours, and if no whales are spotted, they refund 80% of the ticket price.
That said, don’t get your hopes up — whales are detected by sonar, so refunds are rare.