South Island trip - part 3: Kaikoura

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The next day we drove to Kaikoura, where the weather was even better, nice and sunny! As soon as we arrived we decided to stay an extra night in Kaikoura, because it was a beautiful place with a lot to do! The first morning Michiel and I went swimming with dolphins, which was incredible! I had expected it to be cool, but not this cool! We went on a boat that took us right in the middle of a group of about 300 (!!) dolphins, where we were let off the boat with wetsuits and snorkels. We were told not to touch the dolphins, but it was hard not to touch them, because they were all around us and came very close! We had to entertain them (not the other way around, the guides made that very clear!) to get their attention, so it was funny watching all those silly humans making weird sounds and moves 😊 We spent in total about an hour in the water with the dolphins (including a couple of relocations to keep up with the dolphins). Yeah, swimming with the dolphins was definitely the highlight of my trip, it was just so amazing! The next day Michiel and I went sea kayaking, which was pretty cool because it took us quite close to several seals swimming next to our kayak. All in all, Kaikoura was a very nice place, with cool activities, beautiful views, a good atmosphere and great weather, so I think I liked that the most!

After relaxing in Kaikoura for three days we went on our way back to Dunedin, paying a quick lunch visit to Christchurch and spending one night in Timaru on the way, and arriving in Dunners on Friday afternoon. That night we had a very nice dinner with all of my flatmates, and the next morning my family unfortunately had to go back to Holland again... So that was my trip, now I have to actually start working on my Master’s research for a change! We are starting data collection as of now, so I scheduled a lot of available timeslots and am now hoping that people will sign up! But the next fun thing is already around the corner, because Emma is arriving this or next week, and we are going to Queenstown in less than two weeks! There’s simply no time for studying around here...

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Comments

[Melina]

ooooh cool met dolfijnen zwemmn, dat wil ik ook eens doen. XD en hee dat shirtje herken ik (van jou in kaikoura uit hapert, toch?) xxmelina

[thetravelbugtribe]

Dolphins in Kaikoura
Love the pics of the dolphins. We are going to Kaikoura soon, which company did you use for your boat trip? Do you recommend them? Obviously you recommend swimming with the dolphins!

[michelle]

heey lief, ik wou ff zeggen dat ik blij ben dat je bij al die foto's hebt gezet dat t dolfijnen zijn... ik WAS me toch aant afvragen wat voor beesten dat waren!!! maar jouw commentaar bracht me de verlossing. thnxxx! haha