Kaikoura: whales at breakfast, crayfish at lunch

The water, ranked

1. Whale watching: the boats find sperm whales on the great majority of trips, and refund most of the fare on the rare blank day, which tells you how confident the operation is. Morning trips get calmer seas; the whole thing runs on iwi-owned Whale Watch Kaikoura, a genuine conservation success story.
2. Dusky dolphins: pods run into the hundreds and the acrobatics are constant. Boat viewing is superb; swimming with duskies here is one of the few places in the world it is both permitted and properly managed.
3. The albatross boats: pelagic birding trips a few minutes offshore meet wandering and royal albatross at arm’s length. Criminally underrated by non-birders, who come back converted.
4. The seal walkway, free: New Zealand fur seals loll across the rocks at Point Kean and along the Ohau coast, close enough that the rule is you move, not them. The peninsula walkway above gives whale-spotting odds from land.
5. Crayfish: from Nins Bin or the roadside caravans north of town, eaten with sea spray on your sunglasses. Expensive, worth it once, and the reason the town has its name.

The 2016 story, and fitting it in

The 2016 earthquake lifted this coastline metres in seconds, stranded the town for months, and the rebuilt coast road and railway are quietly spectacular feats of engineering. The uplift is visible everywhere the rocks wear a pale band. Kaikoura now anchors the east-coast leg of the South Island loop: whales in the morning, the coast road south to Christchurch or north to Marlborough in the afternoon, and the Coastal Pacific train doing the same run in season for those who would rather watch. One night is enough; the morning boat is the argument for staying it.

By train, from September to April

The Coastal Pacific runs Christchurch to Picton along this coast every morning and back every afternoon from 1 September to 30 April, stopping at Kaikoura, so a trip can arrive by train, sleep the night for the morning boat, and continue by train or hire car. A night in Kaikoura between two train legs is the easiest wildlife day in the South Island, and it needs no driving at all. The rail tours collection builds trips exactly that way; the 14 day circuit does it by car on day two.

Where to stay and what to eat

The town’s name means to eat crayfish, and the roadside caravans north of town on the coast road sell it cooked, by weight, to eat on the rocks. In town, the motels along the Esplanade look at the sea and the peninsula, and the peninsula walkway from the end of the road passes the seal colony at Point Kean in ninety minutes. Check-in for the whale boats is at the old railway station on the edge of town, with a shuttle to the marina at South Bay, and the early sailing is the calm one. Sleep on the Esplanade, eat on the rocks, and take the first boat.