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Published: February 6th 2008
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Kaikoura
Dolphin Swimming The alarm sounds...it's before 5am. Could this be right? Is it set to the correct time zone? Yes, this is even the reason we are in Kaikoura, to go swimming with dolphins. We crawl out of our toasty sleeping bags, into the dark night, hop in the car and head down to the sea. Once fitted with wetsuits, hoods, fins, snorkels & masks we are loaded onto a bus and then onto our boat. We had only 10-15 divers in our group, so it was a nicely manageable troop. With the sun rising as we sped out to sea, the breeze waking sleepy eyes. With our experienced captain at the wheel we found our first pod of duskys in no time. The horn sounded to indicate that the propeller had stopped turning, and in we slid into the Pacific Ocean. I expected to find it cold. Instead I found 4 dolphins swimming at my feet the second I put my mask to the surface. I immediately started to swim in circles with one inquisitive specimen, and he must have done 10 laps around me as I frantically thrashed to keep him in view. Curiosity sated, on he swam. Next from the
Kaikoura
Dolphin Swimming blue beneath 2 dolphins in the throws of passion (as they are prone to do ceaselessly we are told!) speeding towards me. Anytime the dusky weren't in view, I popped my head above the surface to see a wall of dorsal and tail fins gliding through the water. We all jumped back into the boat once the dolphins headed on their merry way and with pedal to the metal we found another pod to dive with. One of the Dutch girls in our group said that she could hear them clicking away as she had her hood off, so we were all encouraged to do like wise. We slipped into the blue for the 3rd time, and as the water touched my head, it was like I had been dipped into the worlds biggest Frappachino. The brain freeze was instant, this was the Pacific after all! Those neoprene hoods are so good we had never felt the cold before. I was pining for mine now, but again I was distracted by literally hundreds of dolphins swimming all around me; appearing from the deep blue, some vanishing as fast as they arrived, others loitering, leaving us wondering who was viewing who.
Kaikoura
Dolphin Swimming It turns out that the reason Kaikoura is such a hit with the duskys is that it is the confluence of two ocean currents who meet in a deep trench, driving up plentiful supplies of snacks to feast on. Everyone's a winner!
Exhilarated from our aquatic adventure, we headed south to Christchurch. Another large but sleepy New Zealand city, we had a pleasant day wandering the shops. The alarm sounds again...it's before 4am. I must have screwed up the clock on the iPod. Nope. We wrapped up warm and wandered to the kitchen, eyelids at mid pupil. There were at least 15 heavily inebriated Germans staring at us, pondering if they were hallucinating at the sight of us. Kate's parents had generously got us a Champagne hot air balloon flight for Christmas and we were whisked away out to the sight of our hot air balloon launch. There were two NZ women in our group who were wound up to 90, yapping loudly at a ridiculous hour. The sun was rising as we were rolling out the balloon, with Mark volunteering to help out, and in no time we hopped into the basket and pilot Dean had us under
Kaikoura
Dolphin Swimming way. Thankfully there were 2 balloons in the air, allowing us photo ops galore. We glided serenely over sleepy countryside, and learned that you really are at the mercy of the wind, it decides the itinerary. As we came in to land, Dean explained that sometimes birds of prey cruise beneath the balloon as they have learned that it scares breakfast out of the cover. He was wary of using the burners near sheep, as they can kill each other in the stampede to get through a fence if cornered. After several missed fields, Dean was running out of time (hills hurtling up on us) so he told everyone to get into the landing position. This comprised having your thighs parallel to the floor and your back to the basket, with your girlfriend on your lap. Similar to an exercise devised by Satan himself, it was approximately 1.3 seconds before the burning could be felt in the quads. Two minutes later Dean announced "Here we go, get ready!" and with a massive thump we hit the ground. Then hit it again, and yet again as we were dragged across a field. We all slid out sideways in one piece and
Kaikoura
Dolphin Swimming by the time we collected ourselves, the minibus was on the scene to dispense the bubbly. We don't normally start drinking at 8am, but an exception was made, and we tackled into the booze. It was a fantastic experience, completely calm and serene, we glided over fields as farmers and their wives stumbled out in their pyjamas to wave at us.
From there it was inland we headed, and uphill too. We stayed in the lovely town of Twizel in a great backpackers called Oamahau Downs, a hop from the base of Mt. Cook. There we watched the state funeral of Sir Edmund Hillary, which Kate mentioned in the previous entry. It was nice to hear about such a great servant to climbing and the less fortunate. From there we headed to the training ground for Hillary's expedition to Everest, Mt. Cook. The one hour drive from Twizel was absolutely fantastic with blue skies, turquoise water and snowy peaks. The weather was a little too inclement for our planned stroll, but the location was breathtaking, and the timing poignant. We popped into The Hermitage Hotel, one of the most famous in New Zealand, which has great views of Mt.
Kaikoura
Dolphin Swimming Cook. A celebration of all things mountainous, it houses a Hillary Museum and some bits and pieces on Mark Inglis, an NZ climber who lost both his lower legs as he was stranded in an ice cave on Mt. Cook for 13 days when aged 23. He recently summited Mt. Everest (we followed on a Discovery Channel Documentary last year), and has competed in the para-Olympic games as a cyclist.
From there it was to Oamaru on the Otago Peninsula, where we were seriously excited about seeing little blue backed penguins. These critters less than 30cm tall spend all day out at sea eating as much as they can, and then return to their nesting boxes at dusk to regurgitate fish soup for their babies. We took our seats at the viewing area with hot chocolate in hand, and true enough as dusk fell the little penguins were washed up onto the beach. Up the rocks they slipped and scrabbled, no doubt cursing their flippers with every step. They finally waddled across a footpath and into their nesting boxes for the night. As it was forbidden to take photos (great restraint required for the Asian contingent), you'll just have
Kaikoura
Dolphin swimming to take our word for it that it was indeed very cute!
This part of our trip afforded us some of the best marine wildlife either of us have ever seen - Fantastic!
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MichaelM
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Tweedldee
The opening photo was more like the cover from the telletubbies than from a preparatory rehearsal for swimming in the pacific. The photos as usual were fantastic and those of Mt Cook awesome.