Swimming with the dolphins???
Trip Start
Aug 17, 2008
1
30
44
Trip End
Jun 17, 2009
Queenstown,
South Island,
New Zealand
Sunday, January 4, 2009
Akaroa just is another tourist site located between the ocean and the mountain and it is the only place in NZ colonized by the French in the early 1800's, right before NZ become a British colony (it's an interesting story here and, if you are interested, check on Wikipedia on how the Brits made the claim before the French). The tourist industry capitalizes on this historical fact advertising Akaroa as a charming French little town in an "all-British" NZ. Well, except for the fact that the school was "ecole" and the coffee places were all "Le XYZ café," we couldn't not spot any other French presence other than a couple of French tourists and a French flag. Anyway, our goal was not to visit Normandy in New Zealand but to swim with the Hector dolphins, one of the rarest and smallest species of dolphins in the world that can only be found on the South Island
01 - French presence in Akaroa all right
.The day was absolutely beautiful and, armored with wet suits (don't be fooled by the beauty of the pictures: the water was freezing cold and, even with the wet suits on, we turned bluish after 15-20 minutes in the water), we boarded our boat and started looking for dolphins. We did not expect the dolphins to have any hangovers from the New Year parties kept in Akaroa but, apparently, that's exactly what it felt like as they were clearly not in their playful mood. No wonder since, as we found out later, the tour operator was doing 15-20 tours a day and, of course, the dolphins were fed up with these weird thingies, aka tourists, popping up in the water every half an hour or so. After three failed attempts of getting a pod of dolphins to swim with us (each attempt consisting of 10-15 minutes of swimming in the cold water trying to engage the dolphins), only G was brave enough to jump back in the freezing water for a fourth time and try to interact with them. And, as you can see in the attached pic, he did get lucky with a couple of dolphins that started revolving around him and pretending to be playing for a while. However, as soon as the whole boatload of tourists started spilling into the water, the dolphins decided that they have better things to do and moved on, to everyone's big disappointment. However, to the touring company's credit (Swimming with Dolphins - Akaroa), we got half of our money back when we returned to the shore and 2 free (digital) pics done by them as we've left the shore heading for the dolphins. Anyway, frozen solid and quite a little bit disappointed, we toured the town for a little while and then decided to move on to our next target, Queenstown.
Queenstown is a mid-sized mountain resort whose claim to fame is its self-proclaimed "excitement capital of the world" where one can pay hefty prices for activities whose end result is increasing the adrenaline blood levels (and your travel insurance premium)
02 - Akaroa and the bay seen from above
. And the list goes like this: bungee jumping, white water rafting, black water rafting, sky diving, lugging, parasailing, you name it and it's probably here. As about us, the only excitement we've bought for ourselves consisted of two New Zealand steaks paired with some nice glassed of beer (you guessed it, Mac's Gold). And while we were at it, we also bought the local newspaper to see what are the big issues that worry the folks down here. Well, very big as it seems. The war in Gaza was relegated to the fourth page while a local dog that lost 15 kilos of weight happily took half of the front page. No wonder one needs an adrenalin shot after reading the news around here ;-)All in all, Queenstown looked like a very nice place, full of young tourists looking for excitement and we would have gladly stayed longer if it weren't for its low temperatures (we came there in the middle of the Summer, remember?) and the hefty accommodation prices. Therefore, we've decided to move on to better and greater things: the Fjordland.
