Its soooo beautiful here! and soo peaceful! But you must be sick of hearing that by now!

Walked along the Queen Charlottle track, along a mountain ridge where you could see two sides of Marlborough Sounds, on with bright blue water and the other with green water, both with montains and islands, just stunning in the sunshine and the sound of birdsong.

Swiming with Hectors dolphin, the worlds smallest (1.2m) and rarest dolphin, however, was a different story. The sea was so rough atht one of my friends lost her breakfast overboard and when they told us to jump into the sea I thought they were kidding! Despite being drenched by seemingly 10ft waves and blowing and singing songs into the inverted snorkel to attract the dolphins (even resorted to singing beatles songs in case they knew them, surely everyone does?!), they weren't keen and the swim was really disappointing. On the second attempt we saw a few whizz by but it was so rough and so cold it wasn't quite what I had imagined! Maybe I will get to go again, as I have met so many people here who have had an incredible expereince with dolphins, mostly in Kaikoura. We went in Akoroa, a beautiful little fishing village 2 hours from Christchurch, and stayed in a pink wooden house which I loved so it wasn't all bad!

Kaikora, whose name means food and crayfish in maori, where we stopped overnight on the way, brought the most amazing Crayfish eating expereince, delicious, but sadly no dolphin swimming or whale watching as the seas were too rough :-( saw some seals though!