With the freedom of having a car, so too comes the responsibility for organising what to do. I have decided to spend about 4 weeks in the south island, and the rest in the north. The next question was which direction to head in. I decided to point the car towards the South Pole, and keep driving until I hit water. First, though, I thought I would take a drive out to Banks Peninsula, a volcanic outcrop of land just south of Christchurch, to visit a small town called Akaroa. Then I would head back inland and go south. Once I left Christchurch's suburbs, I started to experience a taste of what I'd been told about driving in New Zealand - large portions of the journey when you don't see another vehicle. Banks peninsula (named by Captain Cook after Joseph Banks, the Endeavour's botanist) was formed when a volcano erupted offshore, and gradually it was linked to the mainland. Driving up the slope of the volcano, and down into the crater again, was an interesting experience in an automatic car. Remind me NEVER to drive an automatic again. The journey also reinforced something I already had planned - replace the radio as soon as possible. My car radio does FM and AM, and it also has... a MiniDisc player. Who the hell has EVER had MiniDiscs? It's a newly-installed radio as well, the previous one wasn't working so I had to wait while it was put in. The other problem in NZ is that you lose the radio signal in large parts of the country, and are stuck with assorted talk radio stations and religious outpourings (mind you, this was Sunday morning). The views from the lip of the crater were breathtaking. Akaroa harbour is cut deep into the landscape, with a thin finger of sea reaching in. This itself is divided by a mini-peninsula, which was the centre of the volcano. Definitely the best landscape I've seen so far on this trip. Upon arriving in Akaroa, I wandered around for an hour or so and decided to stay. I checked into Bon Accord Backpackers (run by Cathy the Englishwoman and Boots the dog) and made arrangements for the next day... First up on Monday, I went down to the harbour to catch a boat at 11:30. There was just me and a couple from the north island, and we climbed into our wetsuits while the boat travelled 12km to just outside the mouth of the harbour. Pretty soon we saw the reason for our trip - Hector's Dolphins, the smallest and rarest dolphins in the world. They only exist around New Zealand. Once the boat had come to a stop, and the dolphins were jumping out of the water around us, we put our attractive rubber gloves and balaclavas on, strapped on the snorkels and jumped in. It's fair to say that it might have been a teensy bit cold at first, but you soon get used to it. Or die of shock. The water near the coastline is quite cloudy, with visibility of only 2-3 metres. This, apparently, is just how the dolphins like it, and they don't venture out further. We knew the dolphins were there, and had been told to make noises to keep them interesting. The best way, apparently, is to sing through your snorkel. Barry and Elizabeth had said on the boat that they were going to try some Elvis, and I decided to go with whatever sprang to mind. Look out for my new song, "Would You Like A Little Fishy, Little Dolphin" in the hit parade soon. Apart from that, I went with whatever my hypothermic brain came up with. The dolphins seemed to like "Piggy" and "Closer" by Nine Inch Nails, weren't too keen on The Killers' "Mr Brightside", cheered up a bit for Bloc Party's "Positive Tension", and went absolutely nuts for Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody". The first sign of them was a vague movement just in front, and within moments they were swimming alongside me and darting in front of my face. At one point there were about four or five following my movements. Hector's Dolphins are a dark grey on top, with a black and white pattern on their sides. They got close enough for me to see the bite marks on their flanks (apparently they do that to each other, but they like humans and don't try to bite us). Once I'd used up the pictures in my disposable underwater camera I just swam along and watched them playing. [EDIT: Dolphin pictures now uploaded, see "PHOTO ALBUMS"] When it came time to leave the water after what was apparently 40 minutes (it felt like about 10) one of the dolphins swam past my head and gave me a squirt of semi-digested fish from its nether regions. This, apparently, means that it really liked me. After returning to shore, I had just over an hour to dry off and warm up before my next wildlife encounter. I was picked up in town by Shireen Helps, who (along with her husband Francis) has spent over 20 years protecting and encouraging a colony of White-Flippered Penguins on the other side of the peninsula. This involves building artificial burrows for them and trapping introduced predators - namely stoats, rats and cats. Shireen is a small, wiry woman in her 50's, and she and her husband are dedicated to protecting the native wildlife. They've gifted some of their farmland to the state, converting them to wildlife reserves. It's not just penguins that interest them. We stopped on the way to the colony to check on a couple of weta monitoring stations - there were some young wetas in there, but each had become home to at least one gecko or skink. Once we'd reached the farm, we walked over to check on some of the artificial burrows. Shireen lifted off the wooden tops of the nest boxes, which more often than not had a pair of penguins inside. Where they had tags, she would note down the number. She would also check if they were preparing to lay eggs, point out when they'd been fighting, comment on whether they were new residents, pointed out the penguin runs where they waddle up from the sea... She knows a thing or two about penguins. After checking some of the more inaccessible nest boxes (which she can't do if she has elderly people coming to see them) we went down to the rocks in Flea Bay to see the penguins out at sea. On the way we passed some more weta monitoring stations, rat traps, a cat trap (she's killed 20 cats this year) and a couple of stoat traps ("we call these 'mashers'"). We also passed a jewelled gecko sitting in a bush, which I am apparently very lucky to have seen. Flea Bay, incidentally, is named with all the subtlety of Australian landmarks. It's full of fleas. They were a bit annoying, but it was worth it to look through binoculars and see about 19 White-Flippered Penguins sitting on the rocks. There were more out at sea, and I managed to see a few of them clambering out onto the surface and waddling towards the others. Once I was penguined-out, it was time to return to Akaroa, marvelling about the fact that I'd had two incredible wildlife-related experiences in one day. I wondered if there would be a third. I suppose seeing a sheep give birth as we drove past probably qualifies, but it was relegated to fourth place when I got a text message telling me that Steve Irwin (and his ego) had been killed by a stingray. I was snorkelling off the same reef near Port Douglas just over a month ago. Didn't see any stingrays, though. I'm glad I'm not in Australia for the mourning, though, it's been compared on Kiwi radio to the outpouring of grief that took place after Princess Diana went tunnelling. OK, he had a great deal of entertainment value and he obviously cared passionately about conservation, and he had a young family. For crying out loud, though, it was only a matter of time before one animal snapped and lashed out at him...