Only a little bit to update about Christchurch but it does include a possible favourite activity!!

We arrived at our 'newly decorated historic hotel' not expecting too much as it was cheap but seriously do not know what posessed them to design it the way they did it felt like we'd walked into the shining and our room smelt a little mouldy but apart from that it was bliss!

We spent the first day wandering around trying to decide what to do, went to the Cathedral which was nice but wasn't quite at European standards. We walked through the Gardens and then we came across a leaflet on swimming with dolphins...way above budget but we wanted to finish New Zealand on a high so what better way?!

We got picked up from the hostel bright and early and took the scenic route to Akaroa where we were dropped off at the tour place.
On the boat in our sexy wetsuits (it was a freezing cold day!) the guide gave us a talk about how if one pod of dolphins didn't want to play we'd find another and that we'd be swimming with the very rare and smallest marine dolphin - the hector dolphins - which, can only be found on the south coast of New Zealand and only grow to 1.5m (if I remember rightly).

About an hour in, we'd seen lots of little blue penguins floating around that were really cute but...no dolphins! The guides were getting a bit worried and we were beginning to think we'd blown the budget on a long boat ride!
No worries though, as they say in New Zealand, we finally found a pod of about 6 dolphins and were allowed to get into the ocean with them. A little dubious at first as the sea was not exactly warm and/or calm!!!! It was so amazing though, they weaved between us and surfed the waves around us coming to within about a foot, maybe less, of us. We were all like excited little children.

As if that wasn't fantastic enough, we were given a partial refund because it'd taken so long to find the dolphins! Yay. Such a good note to leave on.

Now back in Sydney we've mostly been spending time with Harriet and Ash and now Naomi and Louise are here so we've booked Fraser Island, Noosa, Whit sundays, Snorkelling and diving on the reef and we've booked the car so, lots to look forward to from next week and also a couple more things to do in Sydney before we leave on 1st May.

Lots of love

Deb and Lu
xxxxxx