It is never boring driving around New Zealand the views are always breathtaking - so we quite often find our journey times are a lot longer than they tell us as we have the odd stop (or 2 or 3 or 4...) for photographs.....
It was all too much for Andrea though who left us to it and went for a nap in the back of the van.
We headed down to Kaikoroa to go Whale Watching and we were rewarded with seeing 4 sperm whales - they were quite spectacular, Unfortunately very choppy conditions made it hard to get really good photo's and both Andrea and I got sea sick - but still it was worth it.
The Whales were not enough so next we headed out to swim with the dolphins - here Silke and Andrea are getting quite excited as we have just spotted a big pod of around 200 Dusky dolphins.
On goes the snorkels and we are all excited - this has been one of my 'must do's' for a long time so at last I got to jump in the water with these beautiful creatures - and not I don't mean Silke and Andrea!!!(sorry girls but the Dusky's beat you....)
We were given a few tips to help attract the dolphins over to us - you have to let them come to you and swim with them on there terms - unfortunately for the dolphins the main attraction is to sing to them - mmm those who have ever heard me sing ( and that is normally restricted to Happy Birthday) will no this was not a pleasant experience - however, it did not seem to deter these dolphins (maybe they thought I was in pain as they are also quite protective animals!!). They would swim a around you in circles and some came up really close. I was so excited I only managed to get a couple of photo's.....definitely up there with one of my top experiences.
As you can see we all loved swimming with the dolphins - even Andrea who got badly seasick for the second time that day (she has vowed that we are not dragging her onto another boat!!) - it was however pretty cold on the journey back to the mainland!!
Then of course there was all the photo's of the dolphins we got to take from the boat - these dusky dolphins were beautiful and very playful.
So we now spend a lot of time taking ridiculous photo's and acting like big kids - here we are in Kaikoroa on the coastal walk - with some what teeth things (which were remarkably like concrete!!).
This chimney is the only think still standing from the old whaling station at Kaikoroa....
Chom Poo Moo admires the ability of the Fur seals to just sleep anywhere......
Silke and I with the fur seals.
Lots of photo's of the fur seals later and we eventually get on our way on our cliff walk around the coast - I hope your not all yawning at my photo's like this Fur Seal.
No idea what these birds were but there was a whole flock of them nesting on this rock.
Lots more Shags around the coast - these one's all seemed to have their own rock!!
The coastal views from the cliff walk around Kaikoroa along with the Fur Seals and birds were just some of the reasons why the 21/2 hour walk took us 4!!
We even managed to get some other poor walkers to take some of the photo's for us.
Not sure what was so funny - other than my mad hair of course!!
The Maori whale catching statue at the end of the walk.
Would you believe who we met at the end of our walk - the Russian Acrobat Buskers from the street festival we were at in Christ Church (the one's in the red and black outfits in the above photo's).
Can you spot the two dummies in amongst these heads???
Silke tries to decide if this Maori mask would help attract or scare away the men??
We headed to Oakins Bay to celebrate Waitangi Day which is a National Holiday here to celebrate and recognise the signing of the Waitangi Treaty between the Maori tribes and the state (namely Queen Victoria) and which is considred as a day to debate/recognise and progress matters of multiculture in New Zealand. Most people seem to be pretty optimistic about the progress of land being returned to Maori tribes etc though for others there is still a lot of controversy and negativity around this.
The Welcoming (Kia Ora in Maori) celebrations involved traditional nose to nose greetings, singing and some speaches from various officials including the Mayor and theHead of the local Maori tribe. This was the first time I have heard a national anthem that is written in two different languages (though I am told there are others including Canada) - in Maori and in English.
For the first time at a Waitangi day celebration there was a citezenship service where some foreign nationals received their citenzenship to New Zealand - the mayor was quite descriptive in some of their duties which including making sure that the population of Kiwi's continues to grow!!
The old school which has been refurbished was also opened as part of the Waitangi celebrations.
This quaint little building was the Oakins Bay Library.
And this church could be straight out of a village in the South of England.
Silke and Andrea like a man in uniform.........I had to stop them getting into a fight over this soldier!!
The Waitangi day was a mixture of a traditional culture festival and a local school fete - here the kids are enjoying playing in the lake and on the carts before the races started - everyone seemed to have a blast even the lady who fell on her face during the 'mums' race.
And there was a demonstration of the traditional Maori canoe -the original Maori tribes that arrived in New Zealand from Polyenesia etc would have used canoes like this to get down to the South Islands from the north - no easy task in the winter here.....
Meet Shrek the sheep - he was from a neighbouring farm and for some reason has not been sheered for about 2 years.
I'm sure he felt much better after his hair cut - he looked like a different sheep!!
All this wool was from him - you could make a few jumpers from this!!
Andrea got very excited when her name was called for winning a raffle prize - then she realised she had bought tickets to the wrong raffle and had one 12 jars of honey and not a 4 day trekking holiday!! Funny thing was we were about to leave when we overheard the lady say they only had to get hold of silk for the remaining prize and don't think they believed us when we told them that was us too....she ahd won a set of greeting cards!! The compere in the background with the mike had fun telling the crowd about the three crazy foriegn girls who were looking for some fun but could provide the honey!! OOps we did a runner after that....
But only as far as the local beach to check out the local sports talent - well what else would we be doing watching these half dressed men???
Andrea and Silke practice the traditional Maori greeting - or maybe they are squaring up to have another fight over a man - they are a pair of trouble makers and I am constantly embarrased by their antics!!!
Bruce our friendly neighbourhood mechanic who luckily was passing by as the van overheated on the way out of Oakins Bay. Not sure if Silke was encouraged or discouraged when he told us he had been married 5 times ;-)
Some Dolphins playing..........
So New Zealand has been good fun so far - I am already about another 10 days behind on the blog than what I have just updated as internet access here is not always available (was better in some of the remote places in Asia!!). An amazing country with lots of beautiful scenery - I keep thinking that the next place can't be any better yet there is always something else that is different or more spectacular. It is a funny country as well - in some ways it is 10-15 years behind other westernised countries - some really small hick towns which are quite remote with limited facilities and way of life. But it is also full of funny and amusingly friendly people.
It has been fun and crazy travelling with Andrea and Silke and we certainly are keeping ourselves busy - which is not hard to do here. But I better go for now or I will end up not getting this published again before I head out to the hills this afternoon.
Hopefully have another update for you soon - plenty of more photo's to add.....
Hope your all well and coping with the snow at home - looking forward to seeing some of you in a few weeks when I get back to Scotland (arrive back on Sat 28th of Feb for at least 2 weeks - maybe a bit more) - but not looking forward to the cold that's for sure!!
luv
Jack xx
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