Description
After departing Christchurch you travel through the beautiful rural pastoral scenes of North Canterbury to Kaikoura where the mountains meet the sea.

Location Map
During your tour you will:
Take a Whale Watch Kaikoura cruise to look for majestic Sperm Whales and Dusky Dolphins. Other sightings might include Southern Right, Humpback, and Pilot whales.
Enjoy a café lunch
Drive to a lookout with spectacular views of the peninsula and the Pacific Ocean.
Experience some local wines at a Waipara Winery
Visit the Kaikoura Peninsula where sightings can be made of the NZ Fur Seals
Kaikoura whale watching cruise with Whale Watch Kaikoura
canty1 –
“If you are going to take a tour in New Zealand, I highly recommend Canterbury Trails! I almost never write reviews but was so pleased with this tour group that I feel the need to spread the word.
My daughter (21 years old) and I had the great fortune to have a private tour with Irene for the Kaikoura Whale Watching Day Excursion from Christchurch. We were picked up at our hotel at exactly 7:30am on a sunny but extremely windy day. Irene was very straightforward in telling us that we were probably not going to be able to take the boat out for the whale watching because of the high waves in the water. She said not to worry because if we couldn’t go out on the water, she had a lot of other wonderful things we could see and do while heading up north.
Our drive up the coast was delightful, not only because of the amazing scenery, but because Irene entertained us with all kinds of information about New Zealand and the areas we were seeing. She arranged for us to substitute the whale watching cruise with a whale watching flight! Something that I didn’t wake up thinking I would do that day but it turned out to be simply amazing. No whales to be seen that day, but the images we captured on our cameras from up above were spectacular.
The rest of the day was fun with a hike on the cliffs overlooking the ocean, getting up close to baby seals, stopping for a tea/coffee break that Irene had prepared in a cute picnic basket and later for lunch at a nice cafe. We finished up the tour with a wine tasting at a local winery which was the perfect way to end the day.
A fantastic day excursion! Thank you Irene (and good luck to Tia as your new guide- we loved that she was able to share our day with us)!
Visited September 2015
canty1 –
“We had a great, amazing perfect day. It was a pleasure and we enjoyed it thoroughly, Thanks Irene.” Paloma Lopez and Eduardo Theirs – 22-Nov-2015