Month: January 2026

If one were to stand atop the summit of Manakau – the Seaward Kaikoura Range’s highest peak – one would be 2,608 metres above the Pacific Ocean.

In a straight line, that Ocean’s shore would be just 12 kilometres away.

Rivers that rush down steep mountains and then meander across a coastal plain, do not flow in straight lines, but the Kaikoura’s rivers are all very short.

If I have correctly identified the pictured one, it is very steep indeed –  descending 1,900 metres in just 26 kilometres!

(Australia’s longest river – the Murray – descends 1430 metres, over more than 2,500 kilometres)

Unavoidably, a helicopter “joyride” is noisy, expensive, brief.

However, over several decades, every one I have undertaken has been a wonderful experience.

On the afternoon of 14 July 2010 our luck was “bad” – too-strong winds arrived ahead of “schedule”, so our eagerly-anticipated “landing in the snow” was ruled out.

It was, nonetheless, a glorious flight…all less-than-thirty minutes of it.

The featured image was taken from a modest altitude, as “our” helicopter was returning to its base, not far from Kaikoura township.

My photo shows the less spectacular (landward) end of Kaikoura Peninsula and town, the bay on the far (southern) side, and the hills (Australians would call them “mountains”) behind it.

Inland from town and peninsula, the northern side of the local terrain is very much more spectacular, especially in winter and spring.