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Hi - we are now in Hamner Springs but not for much longer! Yesterday we woke up in Kaikoura to torrential rain but a slightly brighter day 'cause we could actually see the outline of the mountains. We had to wait till 8am to find if the dolphin trip was on at 8.30. We phoned and amazingly it was so we got wrapped up and hurried down to the place. It was all slightly delayed but we finally got on the bus to go to the boat just after 9. We motored out until the skipper found a big pod of dolphins and then we followed them around, which they seemed quite happy for us to do! There were about 12 people on the boat swimming with them as well so on the skippers signal they would get in and interact with them. It was amazing, there were so many of them and they were doing flips and swimming really close to the boat, the boys were speechless! It was still really raining so we all got absolutely soaked and it was a long trip - about 2 hours or so out on the water so the boys were ready to go back but it was an amazing experience. We also managed to see some albatross which have a massive wingspan and we saw a seal having an octopus for lunch! We got back on dry land and dried off then after some lunch we decided to head out to Hamner Springs which was a couple of hours away up in the mountains. It's an 'alpine village' which in the winter is used as a ski resort 'cause again it's in the mountains (not that we can see them!) The drive here was lovely - as a passenger anyway but I think it was hard driving for Al 'cause it was lots of winding mountainous roads. It was still raining when we got here but it's famous for its thermal pools so we decided to visit them as there's not much else to do here. They were all outdoors but luckily were very warm as the temperature has dropped and the rain felt really cold - very odd sitting in a warm pool with rain dripping on you but very refreshing. Spent a couple of hours there then back to the site for tea and our last night in the van! Another grey rainy day today, we're heading off to Christchurch now, we have to have the van back by 3 then we're checking in to a hotel. We fly to Hong Kong tomorrow evening - can't believe it's nearly over!
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