It’s not a big city but offers you interesting activities, mostly watersports as it’s located at the shore. You can find here also many cruises for dolphins or whales watching, but due to my poor balance account I didn’t go for it. You can still by a cruise on www.bookme.co.nz though.

What is for free though and I really recommend it is to go to the seal colony. It’s pure fun! You can go to the shore and watch the seals swimming in the water, some of them are real show offs! With few of them I just wished I had a ball to throw to them so they could play with it but it’s prohibited. So the poor seals have to play with seaweed instead!

Another, in my opinion better place you won’t find in any travel guide. About it you have to ask the locals. That’s why I stopped reading the guides long ago. The most popular places you will find on internet or by simply following other tourists, but the truly amazing places only locals know!

What am I talking about? Few kilometers behind Kaikoura towards north there is a place where seals leave their pups for a day while they go hunting during the day. Bigger pups can go by themselves but the really small ones need their parents’ help. Few dozents meters into the land there’s a pool with waterfall where the sealpups are playing during the day. Every now and then you can also see new pup coming to play with others! It looks a bit weird to see a seal in the woods, but it’s actually even funny! The seals are used to people as the place is getting more and more popular so don’t worry, they won’t hide from you! Just don’t use flash when you take a pic. It’s not nice. Not at all.