Sat 23 May 2009
Louise Southerden swims with dolphins, snorkels with seals and watches whales in eco-friendly Kaikoura.
New Zealand is the kind of place that could turn anyone into an environmentalist. Despite its small population and minimal impact on global climate change (just 0.2 per cent of greenhouse gas emissions worldwide), this is a country committed to preserving its natural assets. So it makes sense that it’s also where you’d find a place such as Kaikoura, a little town with big, environmentally responsible ideas.
On the east coast of the South Island, it was the first community in New Zealand, and only the second in the world, to be Green Globe benchmarked. In 2007, it became New Zealand’s first plastic-bag-free district and the first community to introduce LoveNZ public recycling bins for glass, cans, paper, plastic and even food.
Kaikoura was eco-conscious before it became fashionable. In 1997, its council was the first in the country to employ an environment officer. In 1998, it became the second Zero Waste district in New Zealand, aiming for zero waste to landfill by 2015. So there’s no kerbside rubbish collection in the town but there is a free weekly recycling pick-up, which includes kitchen scraps composted using council-supplied Bokashi buckets and a recycling depot that even processes electrical goods and wood.
There are biodiversity schemes, such as rates relief for landowners who have protected areas on their properties, and conservation projects. At the annual Trash-to-Fashion show locals transform everything from fishing buoys to toothbrushes into garments, which are displayed at the new Revamped museum in the main street.
And in March this year, during Earth Hour weekend, there was the inaugural Biodiversity Bonanza, showing projects as diverse as a Hutton’s shearwater relocation scheme (which is establishing a new breeding colony for the endangered seabirds) and the Warm Up Kaikoura project (which insulates houses that were once holiday shacks).
What set Kaikoura on this eco-path in the first place, however, was its unique location. Not only is it flanked by the rugged Seaward Kaikoura mountain range but there is a deep underwater canyon less than one kilometre offshore, where plankton-rich water attracts marine creatures great and small from tiny krill to blue whales.
Even if you arrive knowing nothing about Kaikoura, it won’t take long to figure out that the town’s chief drawcard is its marine life. Down the main street you’ll find the Albatross Backpackers, The Whaler hotel, Sealside Gallery or The Lazy Shag (another backpacker lodge). There are murals of people swimming with dolphins and signs on speed bumps saying “Slow Down, Sperm Whale”. You might come face to whiskers with a basking New Zealand fur seal on the beach and in winter, it’s not uncommon to spot sperm whales from the shore.
In fact, if you love the sea you’ll love Kaikoura. Unfortunately, the sea isn’t loving us back the day we arrive: a cold front arrives at the same time, postponing the marine activities we’d planned. That’s part of being in a wild place, of course, and it is refreshing to let nature be the boss for a change. Besides, it gives us an excuse to settle into our accommodation.
Could there be a more appropriate place to stay in an eco-town such as Kaikoura than in a designer treehouse? Everything about Hapuku Lodge & Treehouses sits well with Kaikoura’s eco-reputation: from the 90-year-old kanuka trees surrounding each cedar treehouse (named after native birds such as kereru, tui and korimako) and the rainwater that gushes from open-ended downpipes onto mini-rainforests below, to its organic vegetable garden, the mountain bikes for guests to borrow and the fact that groundsman Ron Daley has personally overseen the planting of 11,500 native trees to offset guests’ travel miles and encourage bird life.