Kaikoura mark 2

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As we'd already been to Kaikoura before, we decided to spend only one night there, and opted for dolphin swimming over whale watching as Rob had told force that it brought a tear to his eye when he did it. We're not such little girls, but knew it would be good.

The tour itself is really well run, very professional and informative. We got kitted out with extra thick wetsuits with all the extras, which we would become accustomed to over the coming activities (all involving freezing water) and took the short boat trip out to the pod of dolphins, about 400 in all. Whilst swimming with the Manta rays in Fiji was awesome in its own way, dolphin swimming is a completely different experience, and you feel much more involved. Some of the more inquisitive dolphins chase you and swim right up to your face, maintaining eye contact, and if you spin around, the dolphins will bolt round in circles around you until you can't keep up. It's actually a bit startling, swimming in 400m deep water with nothing around you, and then a dolphin zooms past your face. I also had a run in with a giant grey petrel, similar in size to an albatross, whihc we also saw loads of. I was following a dolphin that was a few feet below the surface and crashed into it as it was sitting on the surface. It flapped its huge wings and scared the shit out of me. Everyone on the boat found it very funny though. The dolphin encounter cost about 50 quid, and is definitely worth it.

That night we headed to the local bar which hosted a quiz night, which we won a 100 dollar bar tab (so much for only having a few beers then). This was particularly sweet as we had overheard a local team in the lead earlier say that they were definitely going to win, and were going to give the prize away! I don't think so! We also randomly bumped into Ollie, a dude we'd met on Manta Ray island in Fiji.

The next day we headed up to Picton where we caught the 3 hour ferry crossing over to Wellington.

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