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Our first stop on our campervan journey through NZ was a little village called Akaroa. To get here we had to really test Evie as it was up and down all the way. I can proudly say that she passed the test with flying colours and got us there in double quick time. The reason we came here was to fulfill one of our ambition's of the trip and that was to swim with dolphins. These particular dolphins were a little different to your classic bottlenose dolphin as they were a breed called the Hector Dolphin, the worlds smallest. Now having giving the fact that we could of swam with dolphins in Oz, it seem bizarre that we left it till here considering the water temperature was 11 degrees!!! However to combat this we kitted up in thermal wet suits and headed off, check out the pictures of the cat burglars getting ready for their next heist!
The area of water in which we were swimming in with was pretty rough and Linz got that familiar Whitsunday feeling again and had to hang a the back of the boat concentrating on not being sick. We all had to keep an eye out for these little fellas as we had to find a pod before we could jump in and swim. We finally found some and they are dead cute little guys. They are probably about a meter and half in length and have a short stumpy nose in comparison to the bottlenose. So on sighting these guys of the side of the boat we jumped and man was it cold. To start off with I couldn't breath and just floated there gasping as my body got used to water. It didn't take long and within a couple of minutes we were both swimming around as these little guys swam around us. Its was pretty cool man and Linz even managed to see a couple of the little fellas jump out of the water, which I am very jealous about!! I'm afraid that as the boat was pretty choppy and these fellas didn't stay at the top of the water long we didn't get any pictures, but once again if your that bothered (hhmmm doubt you are) give google a bash to see what these dudes look like.
As for the town itself Akaroa was originally French and so lots of the streets and buildings are still named rue and have a distinct French twang. However we won't hold that part of its history against it as the place is actually very nice and also has a cheese factory!!! Now the factory name didn't really keep up with the French theme (Barry's Bay Cheese!) but we couldn't resist a little visit, particularly to the shop, where we managed to spend 40 bucks on cheese and cheese related products - broke... who said we're broke?!?
We camped up at the top of this hill which over looked the harbour. It was a pretty amazing view and something you would pay extra for if you had booked a hotel room, ahh the advantage of the van. So with another thing ticked off our list (dolphin swimming, and maybe cheese hoarding) it was DVD and bed with a big broad smile on our faces, oi keep it clean out there!!
Grant
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