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Published: August 4th 2006
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Hello everyone!
We are back in the south island in a place on the east cost called Kaikoura. We arrived here two days ago after getting the ferry from Wellington to Picton and then the Trans Coastal railway to Kaikoura. Ferry journey was on Tom's favourite Portsmouth lady friend again 'The Pride of Le Havre', yes! but much to his disapointment not a rough crossing, think that he wants to test out his sea legs but no it was as flat as a pancake, perfect for a little sleep - the excitement of last night's pub quizz was catching up with us - it's free to enter and after many weeks of trying we came 3rd so won a $25 bar tab, SCORE - oh but we won't be there next week to spend it, boooo!
So we get on the train and have a whole carraige to ourselves and sat and watched the world go by, and not a bad bit of the world it is surrounded by the Pacific and the Southern Alps - see the pics! Arriving in Kaikoura we lounged around at the hostel and arranged a little sight seeing trip the next day to
see the Dolphins.
For those of you who don't know Kaikoura - and thanks Ebony for the tip! - it is mucho famous around the world for whale and dolphin watching, the reason for the abundance of these fellas being the proximity to the land of the continental shelf.. what this means in Kaikoura is that there is something called the Kaikoura Canyon less than a mile from shore which is up to 1800 m deep, wow that is deep, man. Along this deep canyon is also the meeting point for two ocean currents, one warm from the north and one colder from the antarctic south. And what does this mean? Plankton and fish in abundance and this of course is food for hungry whales and dolphins, oh and the mighty albatros.
The trip that we went on involves getting on a boat and heading off to the most recent sighting of dusky dolphins which can take up to about an hour apparently, we were lucky though as a huge load of them had been seen by a local fisherman about 25 mins away so off we zoomed. Oh did we forget to mention that in order to
get the dolphins attention we had to get in the 10 degree ocean dressed in wet suits and behave as much like dolphins as possible? oh yes and this means singing to them through our snorkels - taking her cue from our friend Erica Liz sang a medley of songs from the little mermaid - appearing as much like a dolphin as possible, dive swim sideways and be as generally entertaining as possible, to a dolphin of course. As they are wild they are under no obligation to hang around, they were not even being fed so we did our best to keep them happy, even in these freezing temperatures the show must go on! So when we arrived in the middle of the pod we gracefully slipped into the freezing 800m deep water and found ourselves confronted with 200 wild dolphins, not.. it wasn't scary at all! Ok just for a minute and then it was oh so very cool, at times your found yourself in the middle of about 5 dolphins, each taking turns to swim around you and beneath you, it was crazy! Looking into the dolphins eyes under water was mad, and they loved it! After
about 15 mins the pod moved on so we hopped back on the boat and met them and swam with them again, unbelivable! At some point an albatros flew over our heads, they are huge with massive beaks and wings. Cool no?
By the way just because the photos of our swim seem to feature no dolphins, don't be fooled the place was teeming with them but when we were in the water they mostly stayed just under the surface - to get a bit closer to our singing naturally. The visability in the water was low, about 1.5m which was lucky because it was 800m deep! but also meant that they really crept up on you when you were doing your best flipper theme tune impression, sometimes you couldn't see any dolphins and looked up from the snorkelling to see a whole load of shark-like fins heading towards you! - oh by the way there are no sharks otherwise i am not sure we would have been so (ahem) 'brave'.
After our second swim we climbed back aboard and warmed up with hot chocolate and ginger biscuits to take a look at the dolphins from the boat.
We stayed about 30 mins watching this massive group of dolphins head along the coastline. There were lots of mothers and babies which apparently suggests that a nursery pod had joined up with the main group so there were some real little ones. Lots of the dolphins leaped out of the water, many doing somersaults over and over again, flipping right the way over before smashing back down onto the water with their backs - of course we only got pictures of the splashes, hahaha its very difficult to get good pictures of a moving dolphin from a moving boat but we hope that you enjoy our attempts at nature photography!
We are moving on again today down to Christchurch where we are staying for the weekend. The last week in Wellington was great with a leaving-do meal thing with work people at a Mexican resturant in town, and some after dinner drinks - ok, we were out until 7am, rock and roll. Also we went to visit a friend of Liz's parents who lives outside Wellington, we met Dave at his motel (the Aotea Lodge) and had dinner in the resturant there, the food was very good and
the place is huge! I have included a picture of his swimming pool, he sends a big 'HI' to Julia and Kevin.
Christchurch is meant to be cool, and very English.. we shall see! Anyway you can go punting down the River Avon which might be pretty amusing - Sarah i am sure you remember my attempt down in Cambridge, hopefully they won't make me drive!
On monday we fly to Sydney which we can't wait for! but of course this means saying goodbye to nz 😞 As we move away from nz we are on the homeward leg of our trip but my haven't we got a lot of exciting places to visit on the way! Hope you are all happy and well and keep in touch, Liz and Tom. kiss kiss
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caz
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dolphins in the water...
Liz, do you remember when Me, you and Rachel composed a jazzy little tune called 'dolphins' on the old HipHopEjay?! I don't think you would ever be able to find a more appropriate time to listen to that little ditty! Big Hug, stop having so much fun! x