Advertisement
Idiot
Some young whippersnapper took his grandad's Classic Merc out on the beach and this is what it looked like after 3 months stuck in the sand. What a bit of luck, it was never the intention to head north of Auckland, yet here I am nearly a week in NZ and I've not been south of Auckland. I got a free 3 day trip to Northland before venturing south so been having a whale, or should that be a dolphin of time, anyway this is what I've done.
Wednesday 31st - up and outside hostel at 7am, in my new 'billabong' shorts and sandals, bad idea, it's ffffricking fffffreeezing. still get on the bus and head over the harbour bridge to the northern tip of New Zealand, very pleasant green countryside, lots of inlets etc, get to Paihiri (prob spelt wrong) and decide to get one of my 'things to do before I die' out the way, so get on a boat out into Bay of Islands and we search for dolphins, we find a big school (think that's the correct term for a collective of dolphins) and lie flat at bow (front) of boat and watch then swim around and rub themselves against boat, one even blows it's water right in my face, not many can say they've had that done to them!
These
90 Mile Beach
30 miles short, but you can't always get it right when you're measuring with cows. ones have young with them so we can't swim, but later we find a group with no babies so it's one with the wetsuit, flippers, snorkel and into the water, it's deep, choppy and at first cold so I'm more pre-occupied with not drowning than having a life chaning experience, but set out to swim with the dolphins, was amazing, you get REAL close to them, they jump around, go under you etc, these dudes are 3/4m long too, get back on boat, get cramp in leg so don't go in for second round but amazed seeing the other swimmers get up close and personal, (did i just do that?) Nearly then die of hypothermia (swear I had all the early symptoms) but they take us for a nice cuppa, then a cruise and it's all good.
One last goodbye from the bow then back to Paihiri, go out and have BBQ and drinks with the fellow dolphin divers, a certain group satisfaction that we've done something cool today.
Thursday 1st June - off at 7am again, horrible hangover and i take a wrong step crashing out of top bunk, some fool left a huge rucksack at the
bottom of my ladder (well it was me) bad night as they did not give us duvets so in my inebriated state had just curled up in a ball pretending to be warm. Sit at back of bus hood up and shades, go see a very dense, famous forest that Captain Cook planted, too early to appreaciate but it was impressive.
Then drive to top of NZ where Tasman Sea meets South Pacific, Cape Reinga, very remote, very striking spot, luckily no 'John O Groats' style bad hotels or gift shops, but they have the sign, was over 18,000km from London. Visit a remote beach, great photo op!
Then sandboard again, I get to do the 'example' run as I did it in Fiji, scrape all the skin off my knees. Follwed by a drive down 90mile beach, so called as this old guy reckoned his cows could cover 30 miles in a day, took the cows 3 days to walk it, in truth the old fool was wrong, it's only 64miles, so maybe a change to 90km beach would be an idea. Hilarious sight is a sunken 1978 merc which got caught out only a few months
ago, some young fool borrowed his grandad's pride and joy and got a little too close to the soft stuff.
Got the bus to drop me off in a little place on Doubtless Bay (Captain Cook at it again) to stay for 2 nights at the beach house belonging to my friend Rachael's family, so a little break from hostel life, great food, view, hospitallity, this is the life!
Have noted down all England's world cup games in New Zealand time, make sure I don't fly or travel on those moments, or go to any remote islands with no electricity.
So the big news is swimming with wild dolphins is a must do, just don't go to some Florida Theme place, it's not the same, with wild ones YOU do the work, you might almost drown, but it's well worth it.
Got more fun plans for New Zealand and almost certain to move my flights forward a week, will NOT want to leave.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.136s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 8; qc: 51; dbt: 0.097s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
Ed
non-member comment
A group of Dolphins
A group of Dolphins are called a 'pod', you stand corrected Robin.