Whales are one of my favorite animals. Yes, it is true you can’t keep it at home nor hug them when you feel down. They are not fluffy and you can’t walk them out. However, I still consider them marvels of nature. And my favorite animals. Watching whales The first time I saw a whale was a memorable moment. I can easily remember the excitement of this amazing journey to Nova Scotia in Canada and turbulent ride on a Zodiak boat. I wrote about whale watching before so if you’re interested where the idea did come from click here. From the moment I saw a humpback whale I started dreaming about seeing it again. And other whales too. Lots of them, preferably! I thought about swimming with whales but need to wait until this dream come true: it’s best to do it in Hawaii because of the water temperature. Flying over whales seamed to me a luxury I can never afford. And I also considered the flights as research purpose only. On the contrary! One visit in Kaikoura – a small town near Christchurch – has changed this view completely. A local company called Wings over Whales provide excellent services of whale watching. It was a gloomy day, one of my last in New Zealand and my intention was swimming with dolphins. I even went to a company that provides such service and checked the weather forecast and their timetable. It was not only about the bizarre time of the tour (5 a.m.) but mainly about the rain and the temperature of +7 degrees. I just thought it might not be the best idea of spending my last morning in Kaikoura: swimming in a rough ocean. This was a very good intuition: just as my blogger fellow Ari confirmed. Read her story about the dolphins that were not there here. So, heading to a campsite I saw a wooden house next to the road. It was a company that provided flights over whales. I couldn’t believe in my luck! Next thing I remember was getting into a small plane with 6 other people (Chinese, mainly). The rush was due to the message received about one sperm whale spotted nearby. We almost run to the plane! I wanted to watch it so badly! The flight I was sitting next to a pilot! Can you imagine something more thrilling? Not only I had a first row view but also watched the pilot and all plane devices. It was a mind blowing experience! Josh who was our pilot on this flight took off with unbelievable ease and a second after we were in the air heading towards the bay. If you have ever flew such small plane (Cessna) you know the pressure during curves pushes you to your seat like nowhere else. Awesome! To have a good look at the sperm whale (18 m long male) we were making circles over it! And this was really spectacular. Why there? It’s all about location! After the flight an interesting lecture about whales was provided. A short movie about habits of these marvelous animals was displayed and we could ask questions afterwards. It was explained the near Kaikoura the deep trench is located which results in plenty of food. The whales that are swimming from the south to the north and vice versa are coming to Kaikoura to hunt and eat a lot. During my short stay in this lovely little town four sperm whales were spotted. The site is so attractive to them that they sometimes fight to get the best spot. Josh told me how fascinating it is to watch the whale’s fights from the air. And I can easily believe it! Humpbacks, blue whales and sperm whales come to Kaikoura and if you are lucky you can watch them from the air. Disclosure: Wings over whales provided a generous discount for this flight for which I am grateful for.  

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Flying is fun! I really enjoy planes and airports. This is where you feel the travel heat. People are in rush or sleeping all over the place, depending on the weather conditions (hurricanes, volcano eruptions etc.) but airports are really fascinating places. I have my favorite ones and the ones I hate. This time, however, I flied with Air New Zealand for the first time and it was a very pleasant experience. Itinerary My journey started in London. It was a sunny and chilly morning and London is fabulous at this time of the year. I went to the New Zealand embassy first to pick up my pass of a Explore New Zealand programme (thanks guys for making it possible!). From the embassy I went straight to the Heathrow airport where a long flight to Christchurch via Shanghai and Auckland started. My plane ticket bought from Air New Zealand was partially operated by Virgin Atlantic and the overall itinerary looked like this: LHR – PVG – AKL – CHC I am sure that you can fly to New Zealand from Europe a million different ways but as this was my first trip there the itinerary was a bit random. Overall, it was quite smooth so if you asked me I would recommend this itinerary. The overlay in Shanghai was long enough to enjoy some Chinese food (second favorite after Italian kitchen). I am very lousy at dealing with jet lag so I was surprised that this time it was much less an issue. Maybe because of 12h difference or perhaps because I was able to sleep in a plane. Needless to say I was very happy to arrive to New Zealand in a good condition. On A Plane I was lucky to come to New Zealand just before the world premiere of a Hobbit movie. Air New Zealand prepared some nice stuff related to the event. I especially enjoyed the safety video. I’m so used to the ordinary boring ones displayed in every airline around the world but this one caught my full attention so I guess the producers are quite happy about it. They really show this video aboard! So funny!   And this one was equally fun to watch: Just another day in Middle-Earth. Great music! What I really love about it is that the whole island sticks to the movies, the LOTR trilogy characters and most of them are really proud that their island became a filming location of all movies. So many activities are organized around the movie and the book that it was hard to believe. And at some point, when you look out of the window in a plane you REALLY see the Middle – Earth. Priceless! Way back My way back was equally successful. There was a nice surprised, though. We landed in Wellington to get some passengers aboard. The landing took place in late evening so the city was illuminated and it looked really nice! I must say, the airports located next to a bay or a lake are so pretty! The stop was really quick and so we landed in Shanghai on time. I had a marvelous lunch (despite of a bizarre early morning hour) at a the same place as previously and was ready to continue the flight to London. It was funny, though, to experience that speaking English is not everything. In a Chinese restaurant located at the airport people didn’t speak English and ordering the food involved watching photos and pointing the meals with a finger. Getting back to the basics was fun. On the other hand, the Chinese food was so good that no matter what had been picked up it was simply delicious. None of my luggage was missing and so I got back home safe and sound. Next post will tell you the story of Christchurch- a city that recovers from an earthquake. Stay with me and follow the link.  

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