Kaikoura Travel Guide

Gold Art & Design Gallery in Kaikoura is a gallery and studio of local craft — NZ greenstone carving, jewellery, glass and woodwork. Run by an artist team, it lets you watch jade being shaped on site; pieces draw on Maori motifs and coastal inspiration — the place for Kaikoura souvenirs and greenstone craft.

Kaikoura Museum in the town centre tells the story of this seaside town from Maori settlement, through the whaling era, to modern whale-watching tourism. Whale skeletons, whaling tools and 19th-century relics join exhibits on marine ecology and the earthquake-raised coast; compact but solid, it is the perfect primer before a whale-watching trip.

The Ohau Point seal colony lies beside State Highway 1 north of Kaikoura and is one of the most accessible New Zealand fur seal colonies in the country. Dozens of fur seals gather year-round on the rocks and shallows by the road, pups playing among the boulders while adults bask in the tidal pools — all easily watched from the roadside viewing spots. A short track inland leads to a small waterfall where seal pups were once famously seen playing in the pool below, nicknamed a 'seal creche'. This stretch forms part of Kaikoura's coastal wildlife corridor, alongside whale watching and dolphin swimming.