Kaikoura (New Zealand)

Hello all,

Despite only spending one day in Kaikoura, it turned out to be one of the highlights of our trip so far. Firstly we took the amazingly scenic train ride down the east coast from Picton, with the train running right along the coastline most of the way. Upon arrival we were met by the very friendly hostel owners Marc and Osi, and immediately taken to the pub with some of the other people staying there. A few beers in the sun was followed by the usual friday night meat raffle, which we ended up winning twice! After dragging half a cow back to the hostel, we had a huge barbecue, in true NZ style.

The next day was the main reason for visiting Kaikoura, to go swimming with dolphins. This was my 30th birthday present from Vania, which we didn't get a chance to do in Portugal before we

left. It was well worth the wait, Kaikoura is one of the best places in the world to see dolphins, offering practically guaranteed sightings, sometimes with as many as 200 in a pod.

Dolphin Encounter offers three trips a day to swim with dolphins, but is well run and knows it has to guard Kaikoura's priveliged position carefully. We were briefed as to what we could do when in the water, including some helpful tips on how to attract dolphins. We were told they like singing and if you swim round and round in circles! Also, whilst they will initially come and have a look at you, unless you can entertain them in the first few seconds they'll be off! Hmm, maybe this wasn't going to be as easy as we thought!

Having got togged up in our thick wet suits, including hood and gloves, it was off in the boat to find some dolphins. After the first few swam away from our boat at high speed, it wasn't looking too good. However, the next pod we found seemed a bit friendlier. The twenty or so divers all then piled into the water, splashing around extremely gracefully and making daft noises as instructed. It was very funny to hear the muffled singing through snorkels, I'm not sure if the dolphins or the non-swimmers on the boat were more amused by the whole spectacle! My first couple of dolphins whizzed by, no chance of catching up with them so I resorted to the singing tactics. I don't know if you've ever tried singing through a snorkel, but it's not easy. I either ended up making myself laugh and flooding my mask, or choking on water down the tube! The dolphins clearly weren't appreciating my songs, so I reverted to making an "ah ah ah" Anne from Little Britain noise, and to great success! Suddenly several dolphins came by, mostly with a bemused look, but a few more Annes followed by some frantic swimming in circles kept their attention and they started to swim round me in circles. It was an amazing feeling to be interacting with them in the wild, playing these daft games. When I made myself laugh again and had to surface to sort out my snorkel, one of them was still circling me when I went back under water.

Back on the boat, we went for a bit of above sea level dolphin viewing, and saw lots more. Dusky dolphins are highly sociable, and one of the more acrobatic species. We were treated to some amazing acrobatic displays, some were doing sucessions of back flips. I managed to catch some of this on camera:

Tom