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Published: February 15th 2007
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Accidentally on Porpoise
See that line of dark across the sea? That's a whole big school of dolphins! Who would have thought that already one whole year has passed since Glynn and I got married? It still hasn't quite sunk in that I have a husband nevermind the fact that we're about to celebrate our first wedding anniversary. Wonders will never cease.
Thankfully our day began with cloudy rather than stormy skies although it was still too grey to get excited about a walk on the beach. Just as I was about to give up on the idea, a dark discolouration in the sea about a kilometer off the shore caught my eye. At first I thought it might have been a whale as they frequently pop up in the waters south of Kaikoura but this definitely wasn't a whale. After watching for a few moments longer, I realised I was looking at a huge school of dolphins moving as one through the spray of the ocean. They were clearly having a lot of fun as they leapt in and out of the water, riding the waves and performing the sort of aquatic acrobatic stunts you see in Sea Life shows. It was awesome.
As I stood watching this wonderful display of dancing dolphins, a couple of
High Jump
If you look carefully, you can just make out a dolphin leaping out of the water near the left of the picture. God bless camera zooms! German ladies came over to see what I was gazing at. We chatted for a while as the school gradually swam out of eyeshot only to spot another smaller group of dolphins closer to shore who also seemed in the mood to entertain the humans on the beach. Unfortunately Glynn missed much of the show as he was busy getting a shower at the time.
We left the campsite late morning and resumed our search for free places to camp now that we were all clean again. We didn't have any luck at first and the coastal road soon melted away and we found ourselves rising higher again as we entered yet another range of mountains. This time the landscape was quite barren and arid, reminding me of the landscapes on Fuerteventura in the Canary Islands where I once worked as a holiday rep, only here in New Zealand they have put the dry land to good use - as vineyards. Stretching for miles in every direction was row upon row of young vines, testament to New Zealand's fast growing wine industry.
The first candidate for a campsite didn't offer views of anything more than the carpark and a few trees so on we travelled. Not much further away, we spotted a sign for a 'historic bridge' and picnic area so we pulled in to take a look around. We hadn't initially intended to camp there and given the big 'no camping' sign at the entrance, we probably shouldn't have stayed but we figured the location was halfway decent and it was far enough away from civilisation to assume that no-one would turn up in the middle of the night and ask us to move on.
While the day remained dry, a cool south-westerly breeze had picked up causing us to head to the shelter of the van every time the short bursts of sunshine subsided. We spent the afternoon reading and relaxing and Glynn put the time to good use by continuing his new project of making a comic book of Jish's adventures around the world. The working title is The Adventures of Stowaway Jish, so you won't win any prizes for guessing how the story goes but I have to tell you that Glynn's a seriously talented artist. This I already knew about him but seeing him as his creative juices were flowing was mesmerising. I can't draw for toffee so I feel doubly impressed by the wonderful pictures he's sketched already. I really hope he carries on with it and then who knows what might happen!
As it is our anniversary today, we uncorked the last bottle of wine we had left and enjoyed a delicious satay meal cooked by Glynn's own fair hands on the little gas stove. Sitting at a concrete picnic bench in a carpark in the middle of nowhere wasn't quite the way we imagined we would spend this special evening but it was good to just be alone together knowing that we've still got 4 months' worth of travelling left to do. In the space of a year, we sold a house, quit our jobs, sold all our stuff, had lots of vaccinations, all so we could enjoy the delights and challenges of Japan, Hong Kong, China, Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore and New Zealand. And the best thing about it all is that we got to do it together :-)
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