Kaikoura - round 2

A must-go: Kaikoura Lookout

Kaikoura!
I'm back.
And you are Beautiful!

Taken on Dec 25th, 2021

When I first started this trip
- the day I began to drive down south
(on the 25th of December 2021)
the weather was bright and hot.
I checked out of Waikoura Springs
& headed straight to Fyffe House.
Fyffe House was at the corner of the Kaikoura Coast, 
on the way to the Seals Colony site.
​​It has a wide lawn out front,
flowers everywhere along the front of the house.

The view from the lawn
is of the big and beautifully layered Mount Fyffe,
and the Kaikōura Range across the water.

2021 Dec 25th: a bright baby-blue day.

It was just the most breathtaking sight.
Under the bright morning after-sunrise afterglow,
everything seemed so light and pure.
The blue is of the freshest and deepest blue, 
the air was hot,
even the flowers felt like they were busting in heat,
burning for bees to come for their pollen.

Already I knew, for this trip
​- I was in for something good.

Panoramic view indeed at Panoramic Motel

Having come back, 
we had the good luck of staying at a beach-front accommodation.
The view was so good it looked like something out of a post-card.

The sun brightly shone,
the pohutukawa trees were in full bloom.
The blue ocean was right outside the door,
a mere 5-second step-outside-the-glass-door,
and you're there on the beach.

Beach life, happy life; beach puppy, happy puppy.

We spent the afternoon and the next whole day
on the beach here, playing fetch, sitting, staring, swimming.
I was able to swim - properly -
for the first time ever in New Zealand!
The water was so warm!
It wasn't a bit cold.
After being in the sun for a while,
you'd actually crave to be in the water.
I LOVE that feeling - that love of the water
and craving for the water.
To be able to float in the ocean in New Zealand,
in Aotearoa, 
watching the clouds above
while I was all sprawled out on the water surface
​light as driftwood.
It was a feeling of home.
For the first time,
I was truly glad New Zealand was my home.

This is the kind of feeling I sought for all along: 
That tropical island feel.
I used to have to seek that everywhere else
around the world,
but I found it again - right here
- in Kaikoura.