Projectile Vomit Encounter

"You will encounter the dolphins under their terms."

01 - An orca by the boat

After the tranquil utopia that was Abel Tasman, Farewell Spit and their surroundings it was a real shock to the system to hit Nelson. It's a small enough town with only a population of 55,000 but it scared the shit out of us. We camped in a relatively huge hostel and it was all a bit overwhelming. Still, it's a nice place.

It was then back to Blenheim to catch up with a few friends I had made during my time there. Coming back to the same hostel felt as close to coming home as I can imagine, which was almost sad in a way. We also sold the car to an American guy I had met just after I bought the car. It was a convenient deal, but we could have easily sold Nay-Nay for twice the price. Good Karma I guess.

02 - Dolphin

We caught the bus down to Kaikoura to relax for a few days, with our only real intention being to swim with dolphins. We'd then have a couple of days in Christchurch before leaving NZ for Christmas and New Year. I want to spend them in a country that makes sense. Of course we have to pay a departure tax to get out of this place.

Kaikoura is beautiful, but not as relaxing as imagined. All the camping is right on the main road, and right next to the train lines, so it does get pretty noisy. But it's a beautiful place. Sophie and I were walking down the road one day when we noticed, for the first time, the most outstanding view of mountains to the north of the town. We couldn't believe we'd never seen it before. It was just so great that it didn't look real. These mountains floating on low-hanging clouds reminded me immediately of the old Dungeons & Dragons cartoon where the castle floats on clouds. Fantastic. That in turn reminded me of the girl who turns invisible when she wears that cloak. So sexy.

03 - Soph puking

Anyway, despite some dodgy weather which had caused a number of cancelled Dolphin Encounters ours went ahead. Again it's a monopoly set up by the Department of Conservation so it's outrageously expensive, but this was not a chance to be missed. But for $125 I was expecting one of the dolphins to spend the night with me. Perhaps more then a blowhole.

On our way out we were fortunate enough to come across a family of killer whales which were superb. They swam with our boat for a while. We were just so damn lucky to be able to see these awesome creatures up close, but we pressed on to find some dolphins which hadn't been eaten by the orcas.

The sea was pretty choppy and Sophie suffers from motion sickness, so unfortunately she spent the rest of the trip with her head in a bucket. She never got to swim with dolphins, which is a shame. But I think some of the people who did get in the water didn't even manage to swim with dolphins either because it's fucking carnage.

The boat drives in to the middle of a pod of dolphins and sounds a horn and about 20 people bundle in to the water like a cluster bomb of assholes. Everyone then swims around like a headless chicken-fish trying to find these dolphins and avoid being kicked in the face by everyone else. The dolphins check us out then eventually piss off. We all get back on the boat and then sail off to find another pod. Mayhem.

We did this a good few times and alot of the time it's a bit crap. People are going nuts trying to attract the dolphins, chasing them and screaming at them. War-crys, almost. Like the last scene of Gallipoli or something.

But there were a couple of truly fantastic moments. The first time I jumped in was outstanding. I had been hanging back, pulling Sophie's hair out of her bucket of vomit, so I was the last to jump in. But I jumped right in to the middle of 3 or 4 dolphins swimming together, and for a few seconds I was swimming underwater with them and couldn't see anybody else. It really was something special.