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Dunedin
Downtown Dunedin was really cool. Plenty of older buildings and style that I haven't seen an any city before. Our trip in New Zealand comes to a close tomorrow morning when we begin our flight back to Canada with a 3 week stop over in Fiji. We've had a great time here, and just can't get over how much there is to do on these islands. Every place you go has something special to offer.
Driving north up past the Catlins we first stopped in Dunedin, a very nice city with plenty of character. Normally I'm not a city person, but we didn't have any problems hanging out here and just enjoying some of the things a city has to offer. After leaving here we headed around the Otago Peninsula, a short drive that took us east of the mainland. The peninsula didn't have much to offer budget travelers and although nice was just way over done. So after only driving around the place we continued our journey north. This side of the island is where you can easily make side trips up to places like Mt. Cook and Aurthors Pass. Both these places are high mountain passes and offer skiing opportunities in the winter time. It being autumn there wasn't any snow but it was still cold.
Dunedin
They don't want the Possum's here so their trying to sell them to the tourists! The morning that we woke up in Authors Pass was about -2 or so and not being used to these temperatures it felt very brisk! We did force ourselves to do some walking in the area and after getting the blood flowing started to really enjoy it. We had pretty much the whole day to ourselves and got to see some grand views of snow capped mountains and waterfalls.
Our next stop, Kaikoura had to have been one of our best stops on all of our travels. We got there knowing that we were going to go out and swim with the dolphins but didn't really know what to expect. After getting all of our snorkeling gear on, wet suits, gloves, booties ect. we heading out in the boat thinking that it would only be a 30 min ride as that is how long it had taken the morning group to find the dolphins. After driving around for 45min and not seeing any dolphins they sent a plane into the air to track them a bit more efficiently. Once located all 13 of us swimmers slipped into the water. This is when we realized that swimming with the dolphins
Dunedin
Some cool graffiti is actually swimming with them. Once in the water we were greeted by about 100 dolphins that started to swim around you, diving, turning, jumping. Because they were wild you had to try and get them to pay attention to you, swimming like a dolphin, making dolphin noises and diving down were all ways that they suggested we try and attract the dolphins to pay attention to us. As they put it, we were out there to provide entertainment for them, so we had to perform. At times they were brushing up against Elnaz and swimming only a foot from me! After an hour of this we were far to tired to keep going and everyone piled back onto the boat for a 15min talk on the Dusky dolphins while we slowly motored along behind them. It was an unforgettable experience.
We had two final stops before flying back to Auckland, Hanmer Springs and Christchurch. Hanmer was a great place to relax and because we have had quite a hard last number of months we decide that we'd enjoy a day at the spa with a massage and a soak in the thermal pools! It was a great way
to finish up our South Island trip.
We had to return our little car in Christchurch, so once carless we just hung out and stayed pretty close to home. An old friend of mine is living there for a year on a working holiday visa so we got the opportunity to catch up for dinner. Even though Christchurch is considered a city it is very tasteful, and was not a hug bore to hang out in. I'm not sure how the Kiwi's do it, but almost every place that we went to was unique and very enjoyable.
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