Kaikoura before Christmas
Trip Start
Sep 11, 2005
1
25
34
Trip End
Jun 25, 2006
Kaikoura, New Zealand
Sunday, December 18, 2005
Well it has been a bit of a slow week. Fred is on call all weekend so we havn't been able to do much or really go anywhere. We have worn out the two streets in Kaikoura having wandered up and down them countless times. We have also made several visits to the seal colony at the edge of town. It is hard to get tired of watching the seals interact and it is almost as much fun watching the tourits try to get back to mainland after being cut off on a rocky outlet by the rising tide. Hours of entertainment.
Before Fred started his call Friday evening we did have a chance for some excitement and adventure. We went swimming with dolphins!! We arose at the early hour of 4:45 am for a 5:30 am start time. The organization we went with was very good. They supplied all the gear- full wetsuit with hood. We went on a 25 minute boat trip in search of a dolphin pod and found one that had about 150 dolphins in it. The dolphins around here are called dusky dolphins and frequent the coast line all year round, making Kaikoura one of the best places in NZ to see wild dolphins and whales. The pods often range in size from 100s to even 1000s. We got to swim with them for about 30 mintues. It was about as amazing as it sounds. The dolphins would swim up to you in groups of two, three or even six at a time and swim around you. The trick is to try and engage them and make them curious. The tour guides make it very clear that these are wild animals and we are there to entertain them; they are not there to entertain us! In order to engage them you try and make eye contact, dive and make funny noises through your snorkel. Watching people try to do this is also pretty funny. We both had some good encounters with the dolphins and felt very humbled by them. The dolphin swimiing is very stricly regulated by the DOC (Department of Conservation- kind of like Parks Canada). The organization we went with are the only ones allowed to take people swimming and with only small numbers at a time. Apparently all marine life is proected in NZ, which made us feel better about participating in this activity. One of the best things about the dusky dophins are that they are very acrobatic and once everyone was out of the water they put on a good show for us(and for the other dolphins as it is currently mating season), doing sommersaults and jumping out of the water. They had no problems coming right up to the boats and enjoyed running along with it. The only down side was the water had a bit of a swell which made us both rather nauseated by the end. Lots of people were throwing up but we managed to avoid that unpleasantness. It was well worth it however.
We now have one week left here. Fred finishes work for good on Friday just in time for Christmas. Hard to believe this leg of our trip is almost at an end. As a special treat we have arranged to stay at a really nice place called the Hapuku Lodge for Christmas, which is just outside of town. After staying in our musty place for three weeks it will feel like heaven! They are putting on a great Christmas buffet, with full spread, which we are looking forward to. It still doesn't really feel like Christmas but we are doing our best to get in the sprit. Yesterday we had another crafting session where we made snowflakes and Fred made a very creative snow man!! Tonight there are some carols going on so we might go check that out and hope Fred doesn't get called!
