Going travelling, photos and comments: Kaikoura

Fur Seals are all around the Kaikoura coast but at the end of the Peninsular walk they are very close to the shore and know that they are in no danger from the humans. There are big signs saying how close your allowed to be to them as their bite can be quite bad. There were quite a few people really close but luckily for them the seals hadn't read the signs.

This was a really plant and a very tame seabird but I havn't found a library open yet to check out what they are yet.

The coast around New Zealand is apparently very special as the depth of water is very deep only 4 nautical miles from the land. This means the whales are present really close to the shore. The whales we saw were sperm whales and they have a large oil/fat storage area in their skull which they use to regulate their buoyancy. To dive they suck in cold water in their nose and the fat solidifies, when they want to surface they eject the water and warm up the fat by pumping warm blood into vessels around the fat. This liquefies the fat and they start to float.