Swimming with Dolphins

We arrived in Kaikoura after daying goodbye to our NZ family and a long day on the bus from Queenstown. We had some beautiful stops one being a view of Mt Cook where we had the most beautiful weather. The sky was clear with a perfect view of the snowy topped Mt Cook and the sea was turquoise! Marvellous!

We had to switch buses just outside Christchurch and it was the first time we were on the bus without Lauren. A driver called Ben took us the rest of the way. We arrived quite late so went to New World for dinner supplies cooked and got an early night.

We woke up early and walked to the Dolphin Encounter centre to be wetsuited up (this time the wetsuits were dry) and shown a safety video. We were driven to the boat, it was a beautiful day and the captain started the search for the dolphins. We only had one false swim where the dolphins swam away before we all got in the water. The second time was successful and we spent 45 minutes swimming with 100s dolphins before one by one we got too cold or tired. It was our job to entertain the dolphins so we made noises through our snorkels, swam in circles, dived. My throat was sore from singing and screaming to them but was well worth it! Was amazing swimming with the wild mammals, they would swim by from all directions.

Afterwards we changed into dry clothes had hot chocolate and ginger biscuits and watched the dolphins swim along the boat.

It was still only midday so we went back to the hostel to have lunch and then walked along the coast to see the seal colony. It was a nice walk, we saw two men fishing by the coast and catching huge amounts of a big silver fish 9 out of 10 times.

For dinner we bought fish and chips and had some ciders with J, Lauren, Mike and Bridgit who had just arrived from Christchurch.

The next morning we packed to go, there were only about 10 people on the bus. We stopped off at a small waterfall where baby seals played. They were so cute playing and fighting with one another while their mums went to get food.