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Published: March 23rd 2012
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Whale
One of my pro photos I took that day. This morning I woke up extra early, around 5:30. I still felt a bit sick but I didn't care because today I was going whale watching! I was so excited! I had to leave the hotel by 6:30 so I gave myself plenty of time to get ready and to get there. I first had a long shower and got dressed in winter clothes, I figured it'd be colder than usual, the ocean air would be colder.
At around 6:00am I walked out the hotel and to the taxi cab that would take me to Auckland Harbour. The cab ride took around 15 minutes. We pasted all the CBD buildings, I saw a lot of men in business suits and women in pencil skirts. I had a new cab driver today and he was a lot more friendly, he talked to me about my holiday here and what i'd done so far. It made the cab trip go much faster and it was much more enjoyable.
The sky was a dark blue this morning, the air was really cold and my nose started to turn pink. I arrived at the harbour and found their Whale Centre where everyone who
Dolphin
I didn't get to see any, but I stole this off their website.
:O was going on the ride met up and paid. It was $124.50 for the day, it included whale and dolphin watching and lunch on the boat. It was expensive to me considering we might not even get to see whales but if I did, it would be worth the money.
When I walked into the Whale Centre 12-15 people where there already, they had paid and were gathering near the front desk, they were also taking picture next to their model whale. Everyone had a yellow pack, which I got too once I had paid. It was a raincoat incase we got wet. Around 7:30 everyone was led by a guy named Richard to the boat. The boat was apparently a 20m power cat, which didn't mean much to me, all I figured out was that it was fast. We all got put into assigned seats on the power cat and Richard gave an introduction. He told us that the trip out to the site where we were going to see the whales would take around 45 minutes, he also said we'd stop on the way at some point so tourists could take photographs which was great for me. Once everything was ready to go we left by 8:00. The first 10 minutes of the ride was bumpy and it kind of made me nautious. I could see around me everyone felt that way too.
After a while the boat slowed down and Richard informed this was the site where tourists can take photos. Excited, I pulled out my camera and made my way around the boat taking pictures of Auckland city and all of the moutains behind the Auckland CBD. We didn't stay long because Richard had a radio conversation with another leader of a group who were already at the site saying that there was a family of humpbacks and that if we hurried that we would get to see them. When Richard told everyone about that everyone quickly made their way back to their seats and off we went.
On the way I put on my raincoat incase any humpbacks decided to spray water on me. We were supposed to see dolphins aswell but we didn't on the way there which was a little bit dissapointing because I would've loved to see them. When we arrived the other boat was roughly 100 metres away from we were. Richard invited us all up ontop of a high deck, which was smaller but everyone managed to squeeze in. From the higher deck you could see over the surface of the water. There were 4 whales there. Three really big ones and a smaller one. I took about 30 photos which I thought was a bit much, especially when you couldn't see any half the time. The animals were so pretty. In my head I secretly named them all. Richard was blabbing facts about the whales whilst everyone looked at them. No one really paied attention to him because we were all so fascinated by these whales. None of them really came close to us but we could all still see them and that was good enough for me.
By midday the sky was light blue and the sun was out. There were heaps of birds fishing for their lunch. It was time for our lunch too so Richard directed us to a room inside the boat. It wasn't anything fancy. It was a buffet. It had a long table of cheap food that you could find at a service station with a big old oil painting hanging ontop of it. I got myself a chicken sandwich and an apple juice. I thought the food was pretty terrible considering I payed $125 for this experience.
Then after lunch we made our way back to the balcony where all the seats were. Everyone sat down and we started to head back. We stopped at a few more places on the way back to take more photos. There was a little island close by called Sugar Top Island and it just looked like a big rock except the top was white because that's where most of the birds stayed...And pooed. The ride back was faster and a lot more rocky than on the way to the whale site and once we got back to the Whale Centre I had lost all the colour in my face.
After I vomited my lunch it was around 2:30 that I called my friendly cab driver that would take me back to the Mercure Hotel. He took a while to get there, around 1 hour and a half and I sat on a green seat behind the Whale centre that faced the road waiting for the taxi. Finally it arrived and the cab driver apologised. There had been a car crash in the middle of the city. A man on a motorbike got hit by a car. It was sad. We started to head home and it took about 1 hour to get back their because everyone on the road was being a sticky beak and trying to get a glimps of what happened.
When I arrived back at the hotel, I thanked the cab driver and went back to my room. The room had been cleaned and now everything on my bed was all folded and neat. That was the most interesting part of my day. Other than that I walked down to the same corner kebab shop and got myself a kebab and a coke. I spent the rest of the night in my room looking at all the photos I took.
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