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Published: February 7th 2009
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We had somehow managed to arrive back in Christchurch much sooner than we had expected and, although it was a lovely city, we had seen it all and done everything we wanted to in the few days we had spent there when we first arrived in New Zealand. Ian blamed me for not reading the magic bible and informing him that we only had two stops after Queenstown...nothing to do with the fact that he hadn't bothered to read the book himself...but none the less we had to spend a couple of days here before we needed to head to Kaikoura for the dolphin encounter which we had pre-booked when we passed through the town first time round. So, first thing we did after arriving was to check out what we could do to occupy ourselves, and more to the point, what we could do that involved getting out of Christchurch!
After a long afternoon of not doing much at all we randomly bumped into James (one of the Irish guys we had spent new year with) and Mal (the Canadian who we had met in Queenstown). We arranged to meet up with them in the bar below the hostel
that evening for a few drinks...and a few drinks led to a night out...a very late night out! We got to bed at 4.30am and were up again at 8.30am, much to Ian's disgust! I literally had to drag him out of bed to get on our pre-booked bus to Akoroa, a small seaside town south of Christchurch, but I was determined we would go as I didn't want to spend another day admiring the hostel walls again! Both feeling a little delicate, we boarded the bus and thoroughly enjoyed the drive there along winding roads that meandered through the mountains...NOT! We made a stop en route at a beach where everyone was told they had five minutes to hop off the bus and take a few snaps - a porno couple (the guy, an Italian stallion of Indian descent with slicked back hair and flowery shirt tightly tucked into his trousers, and his Mrs who was caked in make-up and who looked very uncomfortable in her tight trousers and fifty inch heals) proceeded to step off the bus with a mahusive video camera in toe and we waited ages for them to return despite the driver shouting down the
beach at them!
Akoroa was a lovely little town and it was really nice to chill out there for the day. We enjoyed looking in all the little shops (well I did at least), doing some fudge tasting (which Ian especially enjoyed, although he said he'd rather pack some) and watching the boats come in to the harbor (whilst catching up on some much needed sleep!).
The following day in Christchurch was wasted sorting out our flights as we had decided to change a couple of our flights; we firstly extended our time in NZ by a week, leaving us just a week to have in the Cook Islands and we randomly decided to tag New York on to the end of our trip as we had enough mileage left on our ticket to tie it in and thought 'what the hell, we might as well!'...we're both well excited about going there! Later in the day we were entertained by 'the basketball guy', a street performer who was doing tricks with basketballs. Ian loved him and thought his amusing and skillful performance was worth our last dollar, so we went hungry that night!
The following day we
were once again heading up the coast to Kaikoura. The accommodation we had booked there was much to our satisfaction...it came complete with a spa, swimming pool con lilos, kitchen con sparrows and best of all, a double room all to ourselves con TV! I lazed around by the pool for a few hours and soaked up some rays, whilst Ian opted for some relaxing time on the lilo in the pool, that was until he landed his fat arse onto it, popped it and made it sink! Clumsy boy returns!
Bright and early the next morning we were up and out of the door for 4.30am, heading for the dolphin encounter office. It was a good old walk and at that time in the morning it was a wee bit nippy - Ian as usual couldn't feel the cold but I was wrapped up warm in about five layers of clothing! Once welcomed by the staff we were kitted up with wet suits, which I must say put those we had worn during the shark dive in South Africa to shame! They were super thick and not only did we have sexy dungarees but we also had a
lovely jacket and hood to wear. I hate to admit it but we were looking hot!
We set off in the boat just as the sun was rising on the horizon. Ian and I were once again doped up to the eyeballs with sea-sickness tablets but rather than thinking about the boat swaying we were too concerned with catching our first glimpses of the Dusky Dolphins...we waited and waited and then suddenly the boat neared a pod of dolphins...about 300 dolphins! There were so many. Everywhere we looked there were dolphins gliding through the water and some were showing off by doing acrobats in the air as they jumped out of the sea. We quickly put on our masks and snorkels and climbed into the sea - it was freezing but we soon forgot about how cold it was! The dolphins were all around us and whichever direction we swam there were more dolphins! We had been told that the more we entertained the dolphins the more they would swim around us, so everyone was making strange noises through their snorkels...Ian thought he could impersonate Flipper and continually made ee,ee,ee noises whilst I repeated "helllooo", "helllooo" thinking that the
dolphins could understood every word! We also got the dolphins to swim around us in circles by maintaining eye contact with them - it was unreal and we both loved every minute!
Our return to Kaikoura had been well worth it and it had been topped off with some chips from the local fish and chip shop, some stolen instant gravy and some mint sauce! Lush!
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