Giving Christchurch some room our new route up to Kaikoura took us inland though some great flat plain farmlands surrounded by mountain ranges. Neatly arranged tree lined paddocks spanning out for mile
after mile.
Fyffe House is a little pink but well turned out house on the edge of Kaikoura's peninsula. Named after Robert Fyffe who sailed to NZ from Scotland at the mere age of 19 back in 1836. 6 years on he'd set up a
very successful whaling station within the bay. Wisely he knew full well that this catch wasn't a sustainable one so he also set up a sheep farm on the peninsula.
Once the whales were caught and gutted, blubber from these mammoth mammals was boiled up in giant cauldrons on the beach to extract a fine oil. The oil was then transferred into wooden barrels and shipped all the way to the UK to be used as fuel for early street lighting. In his first season he sent 130 barrels to Wellington for shipping onto the UK. One whale alone would produce 18 barrels of oil!
He built the foundations of the house using whale bones, the vertebra. The story behind it's pink colour is a simple one. It's the resulting colour of mixing the whale oil and red lead oxide that was commonly used at the time. He built an extra wing on the house purely for his cooper, providing living quarters and a workshop for this vital trade of the whole operation. His priority being to keep the cooper sweet as no barrels equaled no oil export.
The curator at the house took great delight in telling us the age of this lovely pink house knowing how us Brits love our old stuff. We didn't have the heart to tell her that we actually live in a house of a similar age! All the while though she did give us some fantastic info on the colourful history surrounding this adorable little house.
The whales he hunted in the bay were named the Southern Right Whale, they had a high percentage of blubber so once killed floated making life easy! They would kill calves knowing their mothers would always
follow or stay nearby making it easy to then harpoon the mother. All this culling though came at a price as once all the reproductive mammals were being killed the species was in danger of becoming extinct.
Onto a lighter note. As NZ is renowned for its tasty lambs we chose an afternoon of getting up close to these little fellows. Peter Smith, a staunch Kaikourian, hold 300 lambs on one hundred acres. In his words 'creating a hobby farm'. His family once used to farm the whole peninsula some 600 acres housing around 1000 sheep. His breed, the Drysdale, need sheering twice a year. Unlike the meat, the wool doesn't fetch such a high price. He gets $3 for a kilo of the good stuff (ie not the wool from the head or bottom! That only fetches a dollar). One bag holds around 150 kilos of sheered wool from around 60 animals. The wool and shaved lamb had a distinct oily texture, this obviously makes the coat and lamb waterproof. This oil is extracted from the wool and added to beauty products. Within a week of the shearing a 5 mm growth will grow and within 6 months it's back in for the once-over.
Fe had a cuddle with one of Peter's lambs, she was so cosy and so warm. The world record for sheering is 866 one year olds in an 8 hour day (so that's one every 37.2 seconds!). 18 years ago NZ used to have 80 million sheep. That figure has dropped to 32 million. Many farmers are finding it tough and selling up to vineyards or golf clubs etc.
very successful whaling station within the bay. Wisely he knew full well that this catch wasn't a sustainable one so he also set up a sheep farm on the peninsula.
Once the whales were caught and gutted, blubber from these mammoth mammals was boiled up in giant cauldrons on the beach to extract a fine oil. The oil was then transferred into wooden barrels and shipped all the way to the UK to be used as fuel for early street lighting. In his first season he sent 130 barrels to Wellington for shipping onto the UK. One whale alone would produce 18 barrels of oil!
He built the foundations of the house using whale bones, the vertebra. The story behind it's pink colour is a simple one. It's the resulting colour of mixing the whale oil and red lead oxide that was commonly used at the time. He built an extra wing on the house purely for his cooper, providing living quarters and a workshop for this vital trade of the whole operation. His priority being to keep the cooper sweet as no barrels equaled no oil export.
The curator at the house took great delight in telling us the age of this lovely pink house knowing how us Brits love our old stuff. We didn't have the heart to tell her that we actually live in a house of a similar age! All the while though she did give us some fantastic info on the colourful history surrounding this adorable little house.
The whales he hunted in the bay were named the Southern Right Whale, they had a high percentage of blubber so once killed floated making life easy! They would kill calves knowing their mothers would always
follow or stay nearby making it easy to then harpoon the mother. All this culling though came at a price as once all the reproductive mammals were being killed the species was in danger of becoming extinct.
Onto a lighter note. As NZ is renowned for its tasty lambs we chose an afternoon of getting up close to these little fellows. Peter Smith, a staunch Kaikourian, hold 300 lambs on one hundred acres. In his words 'creating a hobby farm'. His family once used to farm the whole peninsula some 600 acres housing around 1000 sheep. His breed, the Drysdale, need sheering twice a year. Unlike the meat, the wool doesn't fetch such a high price. He gets $3 for a kilo of the good stuff (ie not the wool from the head or bottom! That only fetches a dollar). One bag holds around 150 kilos of sheered wool from around 60 animals. The wool and shaved lamb had a distinct oily texture, this obviously makes the coat and lamb waterproof. This oil is extracted from the wool and added to beauty products. Within a week of the shearing a 5 mm growth will grow and within 6 months it's back in for the once-over.Fe had a cuddle with one of Peter's lambs, she was so cosy and so warm. The world record for sheering is 866 one year olds in an 8 hour day (so that's one every 37.2 seconds!). 18 years ago NZ used to have 80 million sheep. That figure has dropped to 32 million. Many farmers are finding it tough and selling up to vineyards or golf clubs etc.
As Kaikoura was a pretty small town we booked the only tour option available which runs out of Kaikoura to the deep Kaikoura canyon. After a lecture on safety which seemed to strongly lean to the sales of seasickness pills we climbed onboard oblivious of what was to come.
With 1500cc of power, 49 seats (filled with eager tourists still full from breakfast) and a 2 metre rolling swell we had ourselves a real interesting open water Saturday morning boat tour on our hands! The boats primary function is to chase and track marine life, sperm whales in particular. Which happen to be as long and 3 times as heavy as the boat itself mmmmm. Thoughts of 'maybe we need a bigger boat' ran through our heads.
Jim, our captain, took the boat off at some pace, as we pulled away from the wharf it was time to take our seat and hold on to whatever necessary. We reckoned about at least 40% of our fellow ocean goers had turned green. All of these numbers making full use of the accessible, thankfully, onboard small White paper bags. (Free of charge with full user instructions found in the bottom of the bag, hee hee). On this smallish sized boat there wasn't really any place for these bulging paper bags to hide. Our health and safety officer (vomit collector to you and I) had seen it all before. We took along a packed lunch! Tuna roll anyone? We agreed, lottery win or not, a boat wasn't making the bucket list! Looking out the window was interesting, sky one second, ocean the next!
Forget Jona, this was Feona and the whale! We saw one just diving down, catching a glimpse of his tail. They can hold their breath for up to two hours so we didn't wait for him, we kept on looking. The boat slowed up again and we road alongside another whale. We obviously took photos but it doesn't translate to what it was actually like being so close to this giant (plus taking photos and hanging on for your life isn't easy!)
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