Another Diary from the last few days....

Thursday
Yesterday was spent driving from the very north of the south island down to Kaikoura- a peninsula on the east coast. It's a lovely little town and one of the best places in the world to spot whales, dolphins and sea birds. We came to swim with wild dolphins and it was great! We put on full body wetsuits and went out on a catamaran 25 minutes to where a pod of dusky dolphins had been spotted. On the way we saw a few hectors dolphins which are indigenous to New Zealand and quite rare to see- they believe there are only 600 in the world. When we got
to the swimming spot all you could see was dorsal fins and dolphins jumping out the water- we were in a pod of about 300 of them! We jumped in to the icy cold water which felt freezing despite a full winter wetsuit, jacket, hood and booties! It was amazing to be in the middle of such a huge amount of the beautiful animals though as they swam round you and underneath you, occasionally stopping to play twisting round and round. We got in and out the water about 5 times following the pod and it was fantastic. Fat better than paying to do it at sea world not that we would anyway- it is cruel to keep these creatures that swim for hundreds of miles each day in a tank performing
tricks and they are there mostly because they have been caught by Japanese whalers when they do their annual slaughter of thousands of them. The guide in our boat used to work protecting endangered species in Japan, China and South America and she had some horrific stories of the cruelty. We knew that dolphin and whale sashimi was widely available in Japan but I understood mostly that whale meat was eaten by the older generation. Apparently though they want younger people to get a taste for it so they can justify the whaling and dolphin hunting
as it makes them a lot money, particularly selling the dolphins to aquariums so they have started putting it back on the school menus. So by going to these places you are inadvertently also supporting this horrible industry where they maim a female dolphin so she calls out and then they capture the rest of the pod that come to their rescue. Anyway a lovely description of our beautiful dolphin swim has now turned into lecture about whaling, dolphin hunting and sea world!
Never mind hopefully it might encourage you to not go there....Anyway the trip finished with us changing into warm dry clothes and then standing at the bow of the boat enjoying watching them surfing inbetween our two hulls and leaping out of the water- a beautiful sight. After getting back and having a hot shower we have driven halfway back across the south island to Hanmer springs in the middle. It was a stunning journey through mountains and we had a stop to help 2 little lambs that had escaped get back to their mum. Tomorrow we will continue until we hit the West Coast...

Friday and Saturday

Today we continued our journey from the East Coast to the west across the middle of stunning New Zealand.It was absolutely beautiful across mountains and through valleys along winding roads.After 4 hours we hit Greymouth on the West coast and then headed down to Hotikaka which is where the majority of the New Zealand Jade is carved.We spent the night there and then visited a Jade factory in the morning to learn about how it is carved.I had lost a stone out of my Inca ring the day before and one of the Jade carvers really kindly cut me another piece out of Siberian Jade that fits perfectly.It was really sweet as he did it for free and I didn't know where else I could replace it.Then it was back in the van for the 130km drive down to the Franz Josef Glacier

Sunday

Today we went for a full day tour on the Glacier.We were up early and in the office to be kitted out in all the equipment we needed forour day- Crampons, waterproof boots and trousers and a jacket.We then climbed onto a bus to go to the entrance of the national park.From there it was a 45 minute walk to the terminal face along a riverbed.Thanks god we didn't have to wade through a river to get there as some people do as our feet were already wet enough from the boots that were given to us soaking.When we got to the terminal face we went over the safety ropes and past the signs that said "do not proceed risk of death." We could see the stunning glacier ahead of us- 5km is visible and there are 6 behind the mountain. It is the fastest moving glacier in the world- sometimes advancing as much as 5m per day. We would be exploring the first half. From there it was a short walk onto the ice after putting our crampons on.It was funny to get used to walking in them but of course when we took them off at the end of the day that felt weird too! The walk was fantastic.It was 10km up ice steps cut by the guide, through ice tunnels and narrow crevasses that you had to squeeze through.The ice looked blue because it was so dense and it was absolutely stunning. We climbed up and up and up tramping slowly, stopping to munch on our cheese sandwiches we had packed. We walked uphill for about 5 hours until we reached the highest point at 3pm where we had amazing views of the rest of the glacier and the mountains around us. We had our own ice axes and felt like proper explorers picking away and climbing up. The walk back down was shorter and by the time we got to the bottom our legs felt very tired for the tramp back along the riverbed to the carpark- when we got back to the hostel they felt like lead! We stayed up late to order Glastonbury tickets so can definately guarantee to everyone we will be back in June...

Monday

This morning we woke up very stiff and tired so decided to go to the glacier hot pools to ease our aching muscles. There were three pools of progressively warmer temperatures up to 40degrees that felt lovely. We have just got back and will shortly be making our way to Fox Glacier down the road... no massive hike on this one though I think we'll just view it from the bottom!