We hit the South Island after a brief stop in Wellington. We had a great day for our crossing to Picton so we thought we would make the most of it on dry land and drive down to to a little place called Renwick. We hired some bikes and got a map of the local wineries in the area (put 2 + 2 together...). 6 wineries later and a stop in an English pub we dropped our bikes off and spent the night in a cool little hostel.

The following day we drove to Kaikoura which is famous for its stunning scenery and abundance of sealife. We were early to bed as the next day we were booked on the Dolphin Encounter tour. We were up at 4.30am as apparently the dolphins are more active at that time - unlike us! After a quick educational video, we had a short drive to board our boat. Within 10 minutes of leaving shore we had already spotted our first dusky dolphins. Within a further 10 minutes our captain had spotted a huge pod of them, literally hundreds.

We suited up and got in the water ready for this amazing encounter. To swim with them in the wild was awesome. They were very playful and seemed to find us as interesting as we found them. To get their attention we had to duck dive and sing into our snorkels (The Final Countdown worked for Jo, I don't know why). We had such a brilliant time and is an experience we will never forget!

We have spent the last couple of nights in Hanmer Springs, up in the mountains. We went to some thermal pools yesterday which were okay but not as good as in Rotorua. After our coldest night yet, we woke up to snow capped mountains either side of us which were really picturesque.

We are now staying with Matt's cousins in Christchurch.