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From the West Coast we drove for 9 hours to get to Kaikoura, a small town on the East Coast with lots of marine wildlife.
We arrived at night and camped at a Seal Colony, woke up surrounded by seals. They seemed a bit annoyed that we woke them up, they are very grumpy animals.
The reason we went to Kaikoura was to swim with the dolphins. This was an amazing experience which has topped our charts, it even beat the skydive!
We were equipped in full body wet suits (including gloves, shoes and hoods) and taken out into the Pacific Ocean in search of the Dusky Dolphins. We were only on the boat 5 minutes when we had to get our snorkels on, the dolphins had been located.
Our first swim with them was a shock, the water temperature was so cold! Plus it was such a strange feeling to stick your head under water and see dolphins close up, they are pretty big. We were told to make funny noises through our snorkels to get them to play, this just felt stupid.
On our second and third swim we got used to the water and began to enjoy it. We began to interact with them, Aidan managed to get 3 of them circling him and I also got one to go in circles. At one point I stuck my head out of the water and one jumped right next to me.
In total we went swimming with 200 dolphins.
Afterwards we got to take photos. Aidan is very proud of this one he took. A dolphin flipping with a snowy mountain backdrop. Dusky dolphins are the most playful dolphins and they did some great tricks and showed off lots.
We are waiting to get out underwater camera developed, fingers crossed we got some could pics.
Katie.
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