Kaikoura

I arrived in Picton in my own personal iceblock from the 3 hour trip from Wellington. I was thinking about hitching down to Kaikoura, but the prospect of standing in the driving rain for hours on end dampened my desire.

Finally arrived in Kaikoura mid afternoon and shock, horror it was sunny. Got myself a bed and signed on for the dolphin swimming the next morning.

7am the next morning and there was condensation on the insides of the bedroom window it was that cold. Hiked down to the tour company and within a couple of minutes I was donning a wet suit that was a) very wet b) quite smelly and c) absolutely fooking freezing. We were reassured that the water was 13 degrees warm / cold. We quickly got on the boat and motored out. After about 10 minutes we could see this foaming mass approaching us rather quickly. The skipper shouted "Out, Out" sounded some bells and seconds later we were plopping into the water like blubberous Navy Seals.

I put my mask on and stuck my head under water. Nothing happened for a minute or two and suddenly from out of the waters ahead of me about 20 dolphins started pelting towards me at full speed. I felt like a toddler on an Autobahn. They headed straight for me and a split second before I was going to be impaled on a dusky dolphin snout, they flicked their tails and missed me by inches. On their way past they actually turned their heads and caught eye contact with me, as if to say "What the fuck are you doing down here white boy"?

They were gone in seconds and we swam back to the boat, scrambled on and headed off to catch them again. We repeated the process about 3 times (enough time so that our body temperature had come close to the water temperature). The last time the dolphins had slowed down and were just milling around, so when we jumped in they really started to swim with us and to check us out. The eye contact was just incredible. After we got back in the boat some of the dolphins started doing their acrobatics - just throwing themselves out of the water and crashing back in on their heads / tails / sides / whatever. One even did a backflip, which I got on camera. Cue upcoming National Geographic Nature Photo of the Year award.

2 hours later we were back on dry land, 2 people had puked and one girl had an uncanny resemblance to a corpse. I went back to the hostel and relaxed in the hot tub for the rest of the day. Great stuff.