It's 183 kilometres up the coast from Christchurch, and 157 kilometres from Picton (where the Cook Strait ferries dock), so it's a logical stop for tourists. However, they go there not to have a rest, but to experience the spectacular marine life. Just off Kaikoura, deep oceanic trenches and canyons come unusually close to the land. These funnel cold water rich in nutrients up to meet warm surface currents from the north. This mix of temperature and depth, combined with the nutrients held in the cold water, creates an extraordinary diversity and richness of marine life in the area.

Kaikoura means 'meal of crayfish', reflecting the abundance and importance of kaimoana (seafood) that Maori harvested there. It also relates to the traditional tale of Tamaki-te-rangi, who ate crayfish there while chasing around the South Island after his three runaway wives.

The coastal area of Kaikoura and the twenty-five hundred metre ranges behind it were pushed up out of the sea by the most recent of New Zealand's periods of uplift, which began around 20 million years ago. Large areas are made of layers of creamy-white limestone, sandstone or blue-grey mudstone that were formed on the sea bed 60 million years ago. Much of these were then covered with great spreads of gravel and boulders washed down from the eroding mountain ranges. Uplift is presently occuring at 13 millimetres a year, which would push the mountains up by 13 kilometres over a million years, but as the mountain rock is just crumbly old partially-cooked seafloor, the erosive effects of rain, ice and snow make it unlikely that the mountains will ever reach those heights.

Just south of the town itself, the Kaikoura Peninsula sticks out a three kilometre finger of eroding limestone cliffs and wave-cut sandstone tidal platforms into the Pacific Ocean. It was once an island, but a build up of debris washed down from the mountains joined it to the mainland long ago. Maori tradition holds that the demi-god Maui caught a giant fish using his grandmother's jawbone as a hook and his blood as bait. The fish became the North Island (Te Ika a Maui), while the canoe he was fishing from became the South Island (Te Waka a Maui). The Kaikoura Peninsula was the thwart on which he placed his foot to steady himself (Te taumanu o te Waka a Maui).

Local Maori trace their heritage back to an ancestor named Paikea, who lived on the Polynesian Maori homeland of Hawaiki. He was chased out to sea by his brothers during an argument and rescued by a humpback whale that brought him to New Zealand. The large whales were not hunted by the Maori, but were certainly feasted on when they stranded or washed up on the shore. Maori pa sites (fortified villages) on the peninsula have been dated back 800 years, and the fact that there are 15 different pa sites on the peninsula testifies to the inter-tribal struggles for control of the region's rich food resources.

European whalers had established a base on the peninsula by 1842 and over the next few decades whale numbers plummeted drastically. In spite of this, whaling continued into the 1920s and on a smaller scale until December 1964. The smaller scale of the operation in latter years was due to the fact that several species of whale had nearly been wiped out and numbers of the remaining species were extremely low.

In other parts of New Zealand, and especially the sub-Antarctic islands to the south, seal populations were decimated by Europeans. However, at Kaikoura it appears that by the time the whalers arrived, the seals had already retreated from the hunting of local Maori and were mainly to be found on more remote and inaccessible coastline. Seals and whales are now protected, but their populations have really only recently started recovering from the plunder of the 1800s and early 1900s. Fur seals started breeding again at Kaikoura in the 1980s and their numbers around the South Island as a whole have been increasing quite rapidly. It is still doubtful, however, whether whale populations will ever return to anything like their original levels. Crayfish (Koura) and fish stocks were similarly over-harvested until minimum sizes and maximum catches were introduced.

In the early 1980s, with the fishing industry stagnant and little other employment in the town, Kaikoura's marine mammals became the basis of a few small eco-tourism ventures. Now, hundreds of thousands of tourists come each year to see the whales and swim with the seals and dolphins (and even sharks!). It's a booming tourist town with accomodation, restaurants and activities galore. You can observe a wide variety of seabirds and go kayaking, diving, fishing, walking, horse-riding or just cafe-crawling. There's also a Maori cultural tour, which explains the history and significance of the area to Maori and their relationship to it.

Being on the northern east coast, Kaikoura is relatively sheltered from the worst of weather from the south-west, but quite exposed to a southerly or south-easterly flow. We spent a few days there in mid-January 2002, coming from Hanmer Springs, which was reaching 27ºC at the time. The week before, Kaikoura had had 23ºC and good conditions. We arrived to wind, rain, 14º and fresh snow on the Seaward Kaikoura ranges. Sea-based activities were cancelled for a couple of days, but we did some interesting (though very cold) walks on the peninsula.

The fur seals (Arctocephalus forsteri) live in colonies around the peninsula and on the rugged coast to the north. They do breed there, so they must be active sometimes (breeding season is November to February), but when they're hauled out on the smooth sandstone platforms after chasing fish in the cold sea, they mostly just want to sleep. Some of them nap out right by the carpark, quite unconcerned. Visitors are asked not to approach closer than 10 metres, though the number of people treated for nasty bites to the legs and buttocks (according to a local nurse that we met) indicates that people do get closer. The seals look adorably innocent and it's easy to underestimate their speed on land. In the sea they are much less defensive and more curious and friendly.

To see the whales you have to go on a Whale Watch Kaikoura boat. They run a very professional operation, but it's extremely weather-dependent. We waited through 2-1/2 days of rough weather before the boats could go out. The whales are mostly adolescent male Sperm whales (Physeter macrocephalus), which weigh around 40 tonnes and reach 16 metres in length. They dive to depths of around 1,600 metres in the deep-water canyons south of Kaikoura. At those depths they hunt the fabled giant squid, one of which washed up near Wellington in 1887 and was measured at 18.9 metres. The whales feed up on these before they mature at about the age of 25 and head off to join small breeding groups in the warmer waters north of New Zealand. At sea and a respectful distance, it's difficult to appreciate the scale of these animals until they dive and their tail flukes stick way up out of the water. They stay down for thirty to forty minutes at a time, so in an hour and a half out over the deep water of the Kaikoura Canyon you might see two or three of these massive, inscrutable creatures. Other species of whale migrate seasonally through these waters and there are also Orca and lots of dolphins. While waiting for a whale to re-surface, we were entertained by a couple of pods of dolphins.

Dolphin Encounters run the dolphin swimming and watching tours. Swimming with the dolphins was booked out for weeks, so we went along to watch. The swell was rising and the rough weather meant that the dolphins were in little pods, moving quickly all over the bay. The dolphin swimmers got in and out of the cold water three times without making contact. Some of us dolphin watchers on the bow got a good dousing of spray too (without the protection of wetsuits), but we saw the dolphins jumping and diving around us. The tour was cut short and we got a substantial refund, so it was good value and quite fun in the rough seas.

Though a number of species can be seen in the area, we saw the most common one - the Dusky Dolphin (Lagenorhynchus obscurus). They feed out at sea during the night and return to coastal waters during the day in pods of 20 to 50. These pods can sometimes join together until there are hundreds or even thousands of dolphins coursing through the water, exploding out in acrobatic leaps and flips. People who have swum with dolphins report it as a near-spiritual experience of wonder and exhilaration, which would be just as well because it's pretty damn cold even with a wetsuit.

The key to the marine activities available at Kaikoura is the weather. It's deep water and open sea all the way to Antarctica, so southerly winds and swells can blow straight in. I'd recommend scheduling in a week or so there to be more certain of catching fine weather. You wouldn't want to be susceptible to seasickness either. We watched one poor woman spend the whale watching trip with her face in a bag looking really distressed (and she'd paid about $100 for the experience). There's lots to do on land though, and the wildlife is unforgettable. There's also an interesting cave and a vineyard just south of Kaikoura which are worth visiting. We had crappy weather, but a really enjoyable time.