Blogs from Oceania - page 7768

The day started with a fine weather and we drove north to see the famous Pancake Rocks. Not much to say about them but the way there and back was awesome - rocks on the shore with all kinds of shapes, and more amazing was the amount of green all around - trees bushes etc, and so close to the sea. Shiri wondered how this all survives with the salt of the sea and then, just about mid-day we got the answer - rain rain rain... I drove 200km in non-stop rain, quiet heavy rain. this part of the road (from Greymouth to Franz Jozef) didn't look as nice as the first one, but maybe we simply couldn't see anything? BTW, a short one about the roads here. I didn't see even one road with 2 ... read more

Well haven't left yet, just seeing how this works. I believe I leave Roxby for Canada on the 3rd March 2005. Hanging out to see the snow, as I have never seen snow before. Cool huh.... read more

First day out of Christchurch... Getting out of the city in foreign countries always gives me a sense of freedom. I love driving on the long roads, with beautiful views around me. On Arthur's pass we had our first nature walk. Since it was the first we chose the shortest one, need to get used gradually, as we learned in the army :-) So we wnr to some waterfall, that was really beautiful, 131m high. I did see more impressive ones before but I never had enough of waterfalls, I always find them so beautiful.... read more

I have no number of how many times some customer on the boat will tell me, with envy blazing out of their eyes, that I am so lucky to do what I am doing. And every time I will patiently reply that in the end of the day this is a job as every other job. Sometimes there are good days, but too often there are not so good days, and sometimes you are just left to ponder why you didn't go for the nice office job... But, when the going is good the going is very good... or something like that. When you have a good day, or a good dive, the whole world is a better place, and you cannot think of one single good reason why you ever would want to give this ... read more

Woke up early this morning for another day at sea, it couldn't be as successful as yesterday, could it? The weather forecast wasn't good but we were lucky, we were out at 8:15 and although it had been raining earlier it was clear and quite bright, partial cloud cover at times but good spotting conditions. We were looking for Lagenorhnchus obscurus, or the Dusky Dolphin, Dusky Dolphins are found in coastal temperate waters of New Zealand, about 20 mins from the coast of Kaikoura. This species is normally found in small pods of 6 to 15 animals, but larger groups of 20 to 500 animals, or massive aggregations of over 1,000, are also common, according to our guide. They are the most highly social and acrobatic of dolphins, they leap, spin, somersault and often associate with ... read more