Marine life

The main reason for choosing Akaroa as our next destination was to go swimming with the dolphins. The dolphins here are the Hectors dolphins, which are the smallest of the dolphins. They have a good success rates on their swims and after failing to swim at Paihia last year, I wanted to make sure we had the best chance of succeeding. The manager and boat captain were a little unsure of letting me go when they saw the arm brace, but they were persuaded. And we did succeed. Photos will have to follow once I've downloaded them. We were in the water for about forty minutes because the small pod we swam with were not that sure and swam off and came back many times. They got quite close, but were maybe not as interactive as I'd hoped. We were thankful for the thick wetsuits provided, or in the case of the kids, two wetsuits!

After completing the swim, we headed north again to Kaikoura. This time for whale watching the following day. With a 7:15 check in for the whale watch, we were faster getting packed up than ever before. The weather was horrendous. We almost didn't go. But in the end decided to. Emma felt sea sick , but the rest of us were fine, but very wet by the end. We saw one sperm whale on the surface and then he dove down.




But we also saw more albatross than at the Dunedin albatross colony, a few seals playing, and a pod of a couple of hundred dusky dolphins. They were having a fantastic time leaping about in the sea. I thought briefly, we should have done the dolphin swim here - but then the tour guide told us to try and spot the babies they had recently had, and since baby dolphins means no swimming, I was ok with our choice.




After changing out of our damp clothes, we headed to hopewell lodge in kenepuru sounds. We had decided to drive around the sound, a long windy road which made for a very long day considering we got up at 6. But it's great to be here. Subject of the next blog maybe...

Cathy

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