We got the last two spots on the best boat in Akaroa on the first day of dolphin swimming of the season, luck or what! I have to be honest this was another situation where I wasn't that sure about it but Edd wanted to and I knew I would regret not following him. Especially having jumped out a plane anything else should be easy!
It wasn't that I didn't want to see wild dolphins I just wasn't sure I wanted to be THAT close to them, they're big animals with a lot of muscle and the water in NZ is not known to be balmy!!! Anyway we got up this morning, had a big bowl of porridge to keep us going in the water and set off to meet our boat.
The company is an eco company and have licences to drop tourists in the water to swim with dolphins. That said its not like you see on tv where you hold on to their fin and ride into the sun set. You are not allowed to touch them (couldn't have if we'd tried) and everything is done on their terms, we don't chase them or try and catch up with them.
I was relieved to hear that the hector dolphin is the smallest of dolphins at approx 1.4m max. It is also the rarest dolphin so that's pretty cool! It's only found in NZ and is on the endangered list. They think, it they continue to decline they will be extinct within our lifetime!!
So we set sail on a little boat that used to be used as some sort of rescue boat with a lovely guy and his apprentice. We left the harbour in absolutely stunning sunshine having wriggled into the thickest wetsuits and I have to say I was actually hot to start with!
That didn't last long and before long I was in the cabin with the captain avoiding the wind. The weather was incredible, we went from stunning sunshine to think think fog and mist. So much so that as we left the long harbour to join the ocean we couldn't see more than about 20m in all directions. I only know we were in the ocean because I was watching on the radar.
We sailed for quite a while and I could feel the nerves of the group getting more and more desperate to see something! We had a group of 6 extremely emotional and high pitched girls on the tour who seemed to think everything was amazing, gorgeous and cute!!! The pitch on the boat was pretty high even before the dolphins arrived!!
They finally turned up just as we were looking like a failed outing. They are stunning creatures that are so elegant in the water. We slowly got in one by one (I was one of the last in!), into 10 degree water I might add!!! And as we adjusted to the freezing cold we had a few visitors!!
We were told to 'be interesting' this means hum, sing, clap your hands, that sort of thing. You should have heard the disgusting noise of people trying to be 'interesting' humming and out if tune singing, not even real songs just anything to make a noise! It was awful!! The dolphins happily glide up and around the random group of people bobbing in the open ocean and then disappear off again. They sometimes play around the boat or come up and have a closer look.
I had decided that the song the girls were singing wasn't working, especially as they only knew one line of the song. I was at the back of the crowd and the boat and started my own little version of 'edelweiss' as we had been singing it in the car through the mountains. Edd joined in and before we knew it a dolphin jumped TOTALLY out of the water!! I shrieked as it's extremely rare to see them totally out the water and the rest of our group got to see the second one do his acrobatics!! I'm so pleased Edd coincidentally saw both too!!! I'm adamant it was Edd and I singing!! 
I lasted about 20 minutes in the water before deciding that I may get a better, or at least different view from the boat. Getting out had nothing to do with the mention of there also being a seal swimming around us! Edd lasted the full 45 minutes and I gave my best effort to catch the dolphins on camera!
The younger boat man who has grown up in Akaroa said he had never seen a dolphin jump completely out of the water and he managed to get it on camera!! Once everyone was back on deck the captain tried to show us some interesting bits about the cove but with the fog so thick the most exciting part by a long way were the seal colony and the one blue penguin in the water.
Did you know seals can dive for up to 12 minutes, in comparison to dolphins that can only stay down for 5 minutes. Seals retain high levels of oxygen in their muscle tissue and slow their heart rate down to 8 beats per minute!!! Their fur is so dense and fine that water never touches their skin and the amount of hair on one square inch of seal is the same as the amount found on a whole pet dog!!
We made it back to shore at about 2pm in glorious sunshine! We had pack lunch from our van on the edge of the dock before we packed up and set off for kaikoura. It was a 4 hour drive and Edd initially told me to sleep so that I could take over but I woke half an hour later and we stayed like that the rest of the trip. Edd prefers to drive and I'm happy being a passenger. 
I am so so relieved to say that my motion sickness seems to be getting better, I have a theory that I had a tummy bug or ear infection that is now clearing up because I almost feel back to normal in the car!! It has given me a lot more sympathy for people who do really suffer and I'm really really hoping that I slowly get back to totally normal.
We arrived in kaikoura and pulling into our hostel with shock and horror! It makes me laugh, Edd had just said we should book two night and I had argued only book one at a time incase we didn't like it. We did a lap of the campsite and left without even visiting reception. There were 'youths' EVERYWHERE! All drinking, lots in fancy dress, tents all over the place and we even drove over one of their drinking funnels in a rush to get out.
The next campsite was similar but they had security on the gate so were a bit more tame. Turns out today is the sea festival in kaikoura, originally a seafood festival, it's attracted too many young people and it's now just a big piss up all day long. The receptionist warned us that it was going to be rowdy and that most people had been drinking since 8am!!
We found a campsite 20minutes drive from the centre with the theory that that was too far to walk, drunk. We were sort of right but we still found lots of merry people and a group dragging big piles of wood off the beach to make a campfire.
I offered to cook dinner as Edd had driven so much so pasta and pesto it was! (We had planned an easy meal knowing we would be later to arrive) I met a lovely French couple who are hitch hiking New Zealand and we spent the evening sat around chatting with them. We've given them our details incase they ever want to visit London (they have never been to England!!!)
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