Kaikoura peninsula is an extraordinary place, for its geology and wildlife as well as its history. Of course these are all intertwined.
For the Maori, it is where Maui rested his foot on the thwart of his waka (canoe), which is the rest of the South Island, as he hauled up the fish which is the North Island. It is one of the first places they settled in the South Island, and it was intensely fought over for hundreds of years between the different iwi. (Iwi is often translated as tribe, but you can belong to more than one iwi at a time.) There are remains of several fortified villages (called pa), and many Maori names attesting to its importance.
The Europeans first arrived as whalers, establishing five shore-bases for this bloody trade on the peninsula alone. Rapidly, the peninsula became a major trading centre predicated on whaling and fishing. That industrial base has now collapsed, and for a time Kaikoura really struggled.
Now its fortunes have been rebuilt as a centre of ecotourism. Whale watching, swimming with seals, kayaking, following the albatross alongside the more mundane walks, rides and scads of organic food. We have a whale watch planned for Wednesday.
The peninsula is a haven for bird life, little of which we have yet identified. Here is a red-billed gull, one of the huge breeding colony on the shattering white of the limestone beach at Whaler's Bay.