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Friday 13th April
We drove to Tauranga last night and stayed with Dave and Jenny Parry. Simon used to go to school with their son. Kate is also here and is coming round for dinner tonight. I'm so excited to see her.
Dave and Jenny kindly offer us their house for the evening and leave us to it. So it's really funny when Kate arrives bringing her in and treating it like it was ours. Hee hee. There are stunning views out towards Mount Maunganui and at night it's lit up beautifully. We chat for hours and the evening flies by. I'm sad to see her go but I'll see her again in Sydney on 11th May.
Saturday 14th April
We go to visit Heather and Fritz Bonk (he's Dutch) for lunch which turns into an afternoon of chatting and ferrying their kids around. It's frenetic and fun. They are friends of Simon's parents and Heather puts on a wonderful spread for lunch. Fritz seems to talk about boar hunting whenever the opportunity arises and they've even bought a piece of New Zealand bush land so he and his 4 sons can go hunting. Not quite what you'd expect a father in the UK to do as a bonding exercise with his sons but apparently it's the norm here!
Sunday 15th March
We walk around Mount Maunganui which is a lovely place then we go to the outdoor hot saltwater pools to ease our aching muscles. It's lovely - they have one pool that's around 30 degrees and one at 38 degrees. It's quite a cool day so I really enjoy the feeling of being in the warm outdoor pools. Much better than the spa at Rotorua as there's no stinky stinky smell just good clean sea water!
Monday 16th April
We go on a trip to swim with dolphins today. I'm so excited. Having seen them on the way out to White Island I'm so pleased we may get the opportunities to get in the water with them.
Simon and I don wetsuits, snorkels and flippers and sit on the back of the boat. There are hundreds of dolphins all around the boat - it's so exciting. They are jumping and playing and apparently they love it when you make noise so they keep telling us not to splash around too much and to sing through your snorkel.
Our time comes - we're told to get in the water. Splash - we're in and I'm swimming around in the Pacific Ocean. It's very strange. I've never done anything like it. We head off in the direction of the pod of dolphins and I dutifully try and swim like a mermaid and sing through my snorkel. Unfortunately at that moment though another boat turns up and frightens the dolphins away - and before you ask no it wasn't my singing ok?!
Anyway, we climb back on the boat and have to leave the area to try to find another pod. Success - find more dolphins so it's back in the water again. Clearly though we weren't making the right noises or something as we didn't get close to them and I didn't actually see any when I was in the water. It's surprising that even when the sun is shining the water can be very dark and cold so you can't see that far ahead of yourself with a snorkel mask on. But we saw loads of dolphins from the boat and I got to swim in the Pacific which was quite an experience.
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