Swimming with dolphins

We picked up our 'Pink Floyd' designed van (bit disappointing compared to some of the designs we've seen but at least it's not the playboy style) and headed straight out on the road. The van's fairly easy to drive and even though it's quite old it doesn't seem too rickety. It was great to be on the move in our own transport again. We really enjoyed the freedom of having the car in Australia and this time it was even better as we could eat, sleep and drive the van. There really is a super free feeling about being on a road trip.

Dusky dolphins

It was a fairly short drive up to Kaikoura - a coastal town famous for it's marine life. We parked up for the night in a seaside car park (ignoring the 'no camping signs') and made ourselves a nice pasta meal on the camping stove. In the middle of the night we got rudely entertained by a local rude boy racing around the car park in his wanna be rally car - but otherwise it was fairly comfortable.

Lazy Seal colony

The next morning we were up early as we'd booked a boat trip to find and hopefully swim with some dolphins. The sun came out as we got on the boat - even though the sea still looked freezing - apparently it was about 10 degrees - a bit cooler than the 25 degrees we have been used to in Asia. We did have full on wet suits including hoods, gloves and socks to try to keep us warm. We were quite nervous going out on the boat - wondering if we'd find any dolphins or not. To start off with we didn't see much other than a few Albatros's (still quite impressive due to huge size). Then about 30 mins into the trip we sailed alongside a large pod of dusty dolphins. They looked so playful in the water we soon forgot about the cold and couldn't wait to jump off the boat and swim with them. Being in the water with the dolphins was magical especially when they made eye contact and really interacted with us - swimming around us in circles. There were about 150-200 dolphins in the water - they were everywhere you looked. We stayed in the water for about 15 minutes, then got back on board the boat and sailed out to find some more and swam with them.

One of the locals!

Then the boat followed the pod so we could get a good look at the dolphons from the surface. They stayed close to the boat and seemed to really enjoy the human contact, treating it as a great game. At one point a seal came along and started to play with them which was pretty amazing to watch.

It was an incredible experience - and we felt really exhilerated by the whole thing and pretty lucky to have experienced it, it's easy to understand now why so many people love dolphins so much. In the afternoon we took a walk along the coast to take a close look at a seal colony. They were really sleepy stretched along the rocks. That night we drove on a bit up the coast towards Nelson and slept in a conservation camping ground. It was a very pretty spot in a national park next to a lake. Lydia took a very quick chilly dip in the icy feeling water but Mark chickened out after dipping a big toe in. Luckilly they had hot showers at the ground to warm us up.

Our groovy Pink Floyd camper

View from local seal colony