Dolphins with Butler and a bit longer in Auckland than we expected!

Butler's swimming with Dolphin tour was our last chance to try and swim with Dolphins. Unfortunately when we came across the pod of common Dolphins they had calves. In New Zealand it's against the law to swim with Dolphins if there are babies in the pod so although it was beautiful to see them with their young, we were a bit dissappointed that we couldn't jump in with them. They stayed with the boat for a while, jumping in and out of the boats waves and clearly enjoying being with us. Once the Dolphins had lost interest with us we came across a Blue Whale. The largest type of whale in the world! It was huge even though the majority of the Whale's body was underwater. Butler the Captain who ran the trip was a real character. He had an unruly beard and large belly which made us think he was a bit like Father Christmas at sea! We made our way to Auckland after the boat trip, staying in a campsite just over the harbour bridge. We stayed for a couple nights and went into the city to have a look around. We ventured up the Sky Tower, the tallest building in the Southern Hemisphere. The views of the city were fantastic and again we had a great day for it as the sky was clear and the sun was shining again for us. After spending a few days exploring the city and suburbs we went to catch our flight to Fiji. As we sat on the plane waiting to leave Auckland, time ticked away and we hadn't moved. It wasn't until an hour and a half later when we disembarked the plane, still in Auckland, that we found out that a cyclone was ravaging Fiji and our flight had been cancelled. We spent a night, courtesy of Air New Zealand, in a nice hotel and booked ourselves onto the next flight early the next day. The flight left on time and we landed in a flooded Fiji and humid heat. We stayed at the Tropic of Capricorn backpackers run by the infamous Mama. A lovely Fijian lady who treats all her guests like her children. She was brilliant. Unfortunaltey the weather didn't change from the moment we arrived. It rained and rained and rained. The conditions on the Island worsened and roads were closed and food supplies were getting low! Our original plan was not to stay on the main Island for more than a couple of days but to Island hop the Yasawa's, a group of Fiji Islands promising white beaches, amazing snorkelling and a touch of paradise. We had already booked a Shark dive for the end of the trip which was rumoured to be one of the best in the world with the chance to see over eight different types of shark. We started out very positively. With time on our hands we decided to sit the weather out and travel to the Islands once the storm had passed. We watched people come and go as they rearranged their flights to continue their travels elsewhere. We met Gina and Mark from Stoke who we actually recognised from the bungy jump. We spent a bit of time with them and when they decided to change their flights to LA we thought we would see if we could do the same as the weather forecast wasn't changng for the next 10 days. Luckily enough for us we were on the same flight to LA leaving just three days after we had arrived. As we went to pack up our things we heard a puppy crying out. We looked out of the window to see a puppy running away from something and ran out to see what we could do. It turned out that the puppy was running from it's mum who must have told him off about something. The puppy was painfully thin and being the animal lovers we are found all the food we could get our hands on to give to the puppy and mum. After feeding them, the tiny pup curled up on the sofa we had in the porch to our building and slept with his tummy now nice and full. We left flooded, cyclone battered Fiji and made our way to LA, hoping that we could change our flights back to London early.......