Kaikoura

Trip Start Nov 21, 2007
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35
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Trip End Oct 01, 2008


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Wednesday, February 6, 2008

The drive up to Kaikoura was beautiful, kind of reminds me of driving down highway 1 in California. Kaikoura is a beautiful city on the East coast of the Pacific Ocean. I mean stunning...and we got to swim with dusky dolphins through a company called Dolphin Encounter. The dusky dolphins are some of the smaller groups of dolphins ranging from 1.6 to 1.8 meters. However, getting to swim with them was still spectacular. Yep, we snokeled with them! We took a boat out to the playful mammals and swam around with them. The dolphins are so smart that they like to play with the swimmers. So, they instructed us to be dolphin-like and keep their interests. Guess what that means? Hum, sing or make noises...yep, the dolphin like to "talk" to you. The crazy thing is it really works. They would swim right underneath you and around you when you would sing a little tune. Layton had about 8 or 9 of the wonderful animals swimming with him for a bit. Jana's biggest group was about 5, but who is counting? It was amazing to see them so close and they were completely wild We had ear tags for our tickets!
We had ear tags for our tickets!
 . They did not feed or intice them in any way shape or form...we just had to "entertain" them to keep them close. We thought is was neat that the theme of the company was not that we have a "right" to have a great experience, but rather that we are "privileged" to experience! Pretty cool way of thinking about it!

Now this may not sound like something spectacular to some of you, but we had mussels for dinner that we cooked ourselves! New Zealand is known for their green-lipped mussels. The are anywhere from 4 to 7 inches long and have the brightest green rim round the outer edge. We bought about $9 worth (almost 2 kilograms or a little over 4 pounds). They said all you had to do was steam them in a half inch of water (wine, garlic, onion was all optional) for about 5 minutes or until they popped open. The ones that had closed lips were the ones you should not eat because that meant they were already dead before you cooked them. There were not too many in our bunch...so we gave it a try and they were great! We had mussels and some garlic bread for dinner....what else do you need!?

Random facts, just to give you an idea of some prices. We paid about $50 NZ (the exchange rate is about 1.22 NZ dollars per 1 US dollar) for groceries for dinner for tonight, breakfast and sandwhich supplies for at least 3 days. We saw on a menu that a dozen mussels were about $21 dollars for one order...we had LOTS more mussels than that and a ton more food. Cokes (16 oz) are about $3.00 most places so we have not been drinking many cokes! However, water is free and easy to drink. We have not paid for water except for 2 times just to get the bottles. One scoop of ice cream can range from $1.80 to $3.00. Oh...we are having a terrible time finding New Zealand wines. When we do, they are $20 plus for a bottle. We thought this was strange because it has been so easy in other countries to find local wines. Lots of the places we stop for morning tea have wonderful options but a pretty price to follow. For instance, poached eggs and toast were right at $9.50.
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