In my opinion, Kaikoura is an underrated destination in New Zealand and I had overlooked it in the past. When I arrived in Kaikoura, I was blown away by its beauty. It was a shame that I was only here for 2 days.

I thought Kaikoura was all about whale watching (since everyone told me to do it), but it actually has so much more to offer. And yes, I did not do the whale watching because I did not enough time, and I still enjoyed Kaikoura a lot.

 

Peninsula walkway is a beautiful coastal walk

I parked on the street nearby The White Morph, and then started the 3-4 hours walk. The Kaikoura Peninsula Walkway is relaxing and has magnificent views. I could also see seals, shearwaters (medium-sized long-winged seabirds) from here.

 

Must eat crayfish

Kaikoura means ‘crayfish’ in Maori, so it is very famous for crayfish since the town is named after it. Some friends told me that I would not have considered visited Kaikoura without eating crayfish here! 😂

The crayfish is yummy! But it is overpriced. There are many sizes of crayfish that you can choose from, and I had the smallest one available that cost NZ$44 for HALF a crayfish. Furthermore, I had it at Kaikoura Seafood BBQ Kiosk which is not even a restaurant. 😅 I also had to ‘protect’ the food because there were many birds looking after the food.

After eating the crayfish, my thought was… I still feel hungry. It was not full even though it came with rice and salad. I had to look for other food after this.

 

The scenery along the way was beautiful (road trip)

I stopped quite a few times in between because the scenery was amazing. It is a very good idea to do a road trip to Kaikoura because there are many hidden beautiful places along the way.

There was a magnitude 7.8 earthquake in Kaikoura in November 2016. I thought a lot of places in Kaikoura would still be in construction but it is recovering quite well, and I could not tell it had just experienced an earthquake recently. The only downside was that some roads were still in construction while driving on the highway.

Here is the end of my 2-day short trip in Kaikoura… I would love to visit here again. 🙂