Kayaking Kaikoura

After getting the tires changed out on our camper van back in Christchurch, Tim and I drove north up the east coast of the South Island to Kaikoura, a town known for its sealife.

Our first Kaikoura adventure: kayaking!

We picked a lovely day to head out on the water, sunny and not too cold.

Pre-kayaking on-shore prep:

The kayaking was lovely... peaceful waters, lots of wildlife. It was our first time using a kayak with a rudder:

We headed over to a rocky outcropping to see if we could catch sight of some of the New Zealand fur seals...

Found some! These two jumped in the water, curious about the kayaks:

Gah, just look at that scenery behind the seals!

After those seals got bored with us, we putzed around a bit in the bay and found some more, cold chillin' on the rocks.

Tim loves posing with seals:

Next: dolphins!

We happened upon a pod of Dusky dolphins! They swam circles around us, popping up occasionally:

We thought it was pretty exciting to see them zipping around us, including right under our kayaks, but our guide seemed a little disappointed because they can be pretty acrobatic. But I still found it cool when they swam right under our kayaks:

Here's some terrible video we shot with the GoPro. Sticking your hand in that water was damn cold!!

After the dolphins got bored with us, our guide insisted on taking the perfect action shot of us in front of the mountains. Perfect meaning in sync with our paddles. It took a few shots to get it right ;-)

Here it is in motion:

Pretty gorgeous scenery:

Our guide also insisted on a "triumph" pose photo, too:

And then we kayaked back, in our uncoordinated fashion:

Good times:

We had also been promised penguins... we finally saw this one lone guy, who kinda looked like a duck floating there:

And that was that... a lovely morning in Kaikoura!

Kayaking Tonle Sap

After our adventures in looking at ancient temples in Angkor, Tim, Tony, Emily and I decided to take a trip to see Cambodia's great lake, Tonle Sap.  

Tonle Sap is the largest freshwater lake in Southeast Asia and is basically Cambodia's most important natural resource (freshwater fish from the lake serve as the main source of protein for most Cambodians).  The lake is pretty unique in that it literally triples in size each year during Cambodia's rainy season (see pic here of the normal lake size vs. rainy season size), when the water in the Tonle Sap and Mekong rivers reverses direction and runs back into the lake.  When the lake is large, surrounding forests are flooded, providing prime fish breeding grounds.

A shot or two from the car ride to our jumping-off point:

Water buffalo wallowing in the mud:

Heading up a (muddy) tributary river to the lake!

As we puttered up the river, we passed by dozens of men using weighted nets for fishing:

Piles and piles of fishing gear:

Then we arrived at one of Tonle Sap's many floating villages, inhabited by Cambodians, but also Vietnamese fishermen.  And when I say "floating," I mean literally floating.  Houses, schools, gardens, chicken and pig coops: all floating on rafts in the river.

The floating school:

We got to take in these village sights from the perspective of kayaks:

The floating houses were quite bare bones: single rooms, many with thatch roofs, open doors and windows. These people are not rich.

Most villagers are fishermen, but some also farm Siamese freshwater crocodiles for skins and meat.  Here's Tim pointing out croc in one of these farms:

After stopping at the crocodile farm, we paddled on to the flooded mangrove forests, home to a ton of birds and the site of much fish reproduction:

After the trip through the mangroves, we headed out into the open lake, boating amongst the fishing nets.  If you look closely, in some of the nets you can see the heads of fishermen popping up just above the surface:

Then we headed back through the village.  At sunset, the village came alive with kids ferrying themselves home from school, boats selling food, people out on their porches:

There were lots of dogs and cats living in the floating village:

Just one of the many kids in school uniform that we saw making their way back home via boat:

A couple more... I love how this little girl is trailing her arm out behind her.  For some reason it makes me think of Kermit and Miss Piggy in a rowboat.  Except completely different:

More kids in boats... who needs a school bus?

This kid was really cute.. trying desperately to escape past the makeshift baby gate keeping him inside.  How toddlers avoid falling into the water/croc pits in this village amazes me:

Some of those floating chicken coops I mentioned earlier:

Two kids who definitely do not look old enough to be operating a motorized vehicle:

As we made our way back down the tributary river to when the car was parked, we were lucky enough to see this family moving.  As in their entire house, trailed by their chicken coops and floating garden, was being moved down the river, dragged by a couple small boats:

We also saw these monks doing some yard work behind a riverside temple:

This kid was helping out with the fishing:

This fisherman had a cat friend on his boat:

Lots of birds: