Seafood Heaven in Kaikoura

Kaikoura is mad about seafood, especially crayfish. We had heard it goes for $50 locally.

Kaikoura is the whale-and-dolphin-watching capital of New Zealand. It’s also famous for it’s seafood WE saw plenty of diver-fisherman emerging with wetsuits and spears along the beautiful coastal drive up from Christchurch. I spotted some dolphins. We stopped at a seal colony to see them busy playing, swimming and coughing fishy breath on the rocks from their own catch of the day.

“Tonight’s gonna be a good night” the fisherman sang as he raised his trap from the ocean floor in hopes of some of that famous Kaikoura crayfish.

I was excited to catch a few myself out on a fishing trip with the bus driver. The conditions weren’t great due to opposing winds and strong currents which made the sea like a moving desert for us to dune-bash through and tangle our lines in. I was at least able to real a decent size catch in. But the bucket was mostly empty. The captain said this was probably the worst conditions and worst result he had seen in a long time. But we were still having fun. We spotted some seals and a few HUGE albatross flew overhead eying our lines - I’m told their wingspan can be several meters. When a few people started to lose their lunch overboard, the captain wrapped it up, saying “we took something from the sea and must give something back”.

Later that evening, the eight of us cooked up our catch, crayfish and ate like kings under a lava like sunset. We sat very contently out on the porch at dusky lodge looking up at the snow capped mountains while fortifying ourselves with wine, crayfish and ‘fishy fish’ as Steph called it. I was shocked at how much seafood she actually ate (and liked!), a deviation from her meat-only carnivore diet.