Hello

So on Thursday morning we left really early to get to kaikoura by lunch time, we had a few stops but as we had already made this journey one we already had seen it and got the pics so me and kev just stayed on the bus.

We got to Kaikoura about 11ish and checked in to a room with steph, aaron and ben again, we stayed at the lazy shag the same hostel as last time we were there and ended up in the same room we were in last time, but its really nice there one of the best. Me, kev, steph and aaron had all signed up to do the dophin swimming so we had an hour before we had to leave to do that so we didnt really do much apart from get our stuff ready but then unfortunately as it was time to go the bus driver informed us all it had been cancelled due to the wind, so instead we all went up to the shop got some dinner for the evening and all decided to stay another night and rebook ourselves in for the swimming the next morning and hope it wasnt cancelled.

That night after dinner we all played some cards and jenga which i am really rubbish at lol. We then watched a film from our laptop 'accepted' as the others hadnt seen it but me steph and kev ended up falling asleep. When we got up the next morning everyone who had signed themselves back up which was about 12 people walked down to the dolphin encounter shop and we rang them on the way to check it wasnt cancelled which it wasnt so we were all really pleased. When we got there we all got giving our wet suits which included hat, gloves and socks as the water was sooo cold. We then jumped on the bus and made our way to the boats, luckily me, kev steph and aaron where all on the same one.

Once on the boat we drove out to the dolphins and had to get ready at sit on the back of the boat and then once the boat sounded the horn we all had to jump off as fast as we could and swim over to the dolphins lol it was quite funny cus we all rushed off the boat together and steph and aaron lost each other and me and kev lost each other and we just all had our heads under the water whilst the dolphins swam past us and we had to sing lol which was funny cus all you could hear was people going lalala lol. There were two pods of dolphins the day we went out there were about 200 in each pod and they were chasing each other so it made it a bit difficult for us cus they werent really playing with us just swimming past to catch each other, but at one point the second to last time we jumped off the boat they came back around and stayed longer which was good. but a couple of times the horn sounded we jumped off swam over, the dolphins whizzed past and then the horn sunded on the boat again for us to jump back on so we could get aead of them again and jump back off.

We had about 4/5 swims in the water with them and then we got all our gear off and given hot chocolate and biscuits which was lovely cus it was absoloutly freezing lol. We then went round to the front of the boat and watched the dolphins swimming with the boat and eventually the pods catched up with eachother and they stopped and were doing flips and stuff, aarron and steph got some good videos which they let us have of the dolphins jumping and stuff so il put them on when i can. We were all a bit gutted we couldnt get in witht he dolphins when they were stationed in one place but we had got all our gear off by then and they had put it all away so we couldnt but we got some good pics of them.

We then made the rest of the journey back to shore and saw some seals on the way, we have seen so many seals since we have been in nz lol. We then got driven back to the dolphin encounter shop and we all walked back to the hostel, got some dinner from the shop and then had lunch and a walk around the other shops in the main bit of town, me and kev got these pies from a bakery they were so nice lol but thats about all we bought lol. The weather was so nice that day like summer lol. In the evening we all went to a pub which had a sign up for people to play the instruments there and aaron plays guitar so we went there to see about that. They started playing about 9ish it was really good another girl in the pub played drums so she done that aaron on guitar and a weird guy who runs it singing and on the guitar too. Then through the night some other people got on the drums, someone on the bass. It was a really gd night me and kev left about an hour towards the end cus we were hungry so we grabbed some food and met the others back in the room latter after the pub closed.

The next day Saturday we had to get our bus at 9 so not to early and make our way to picton to catch the ferry to the north island so thats the end of our south island trip i will rite again soon and let you know what we have been up to in the north xxxxxxxxx