On Thursday we drove to Kaikoura, a seaside town on the eastern side of the south island. The ocean is beautiful here. We went sea kayaking and saw penguins, thousands of Hutton's shearwaters (medium sized bird), fur seals, oyster catchers and many gulls and terns. Kaikoura has about 3,000 seals and we saw many of them quite close. As long as we were in the water, the guide said we were not a threat to them, and they ignored us. We got close to a penquin, it was quite small, but fun to watch.