Today we have been swimming with wild dusky dolphins! These are a species of dolphins that are only found in the Southern Hemisphere and they are especially common along the coast of New Zealand. The company who runs it makes it clear that they wild animals who are not here to entertain us, but it's us who are there to entertain them. We were extremely lucky once again with the weather, clear skies first thing this morning and although the sea was a bit choppy it was no where near as bad as yesterday!

It took a while to find the pod of dolphins as they are constantly moving and just have to rely on good eyesight to spot them every time a trip runs. It took us about 40 mins to reach them, but when we did there were over 200 dolphins there. Absolutely incredible, especially considering our guide said yesterday there had only been around 12! We already had all our wetsuit and snorkelling gear on and so as soon as we saw them the boat positioned itself and we were off amongst the action. They had given us tips about how to get the dolphins interested in you, for example act dolphin like, make noises in the water and the best one I found was when one was near you they sometimes swam around in circles so you have to try and follow it and see if you can keep up in the circle! We went out 4 different times because the dolphins were constantly moving so we'd go back to the boat to catch up. The water was pretty murky so it was a bit strange at first when they suddenly appeared on front of you but very cool.

Kaikoura was our last major stop in New Zealand. The next couple of days will just consist of travelling back up to Auckland in time for our flight to Melbourne on the 13th March.