Swimming With Dolphins

The sun was shining as the bus rolled into Akaroa which is a small french provincial village 80km from Christchurch and it's at the the heart of the Banks Peninsula. The Banks Peninsula was formed many years ago by three huge vlocanic eruptions that split the mountains asunder all the way into the sea - the sea then cascaded into the core area of the volcanoes and cooled them down and it is now a quiet harbour surrounded by steep hills that are green and covered with sheep. It's idyllic.

I had to wait for an hour or so until I was picked up to go to Onuku so I wandered around the village looking for a nice bakery or a cafe (or both). All of a sudden, a bearded man (called Paul) ran up to me asking how I was getting around New Zealand. His reason for asking is that he had just bought a boat in Dunedin and he was looking for a crew to sail up to Wellington and beyond. I would have been on that boat quicker than you can say "Avast, me hearties!" if I wasn't flying to Fiji from Christchurch in the next few days. I sat outside the Deli and had a hot chocolate and chatted with Paul who turned out to be a sled dog trainer who had lived in America for the last 15 years. Such a shame - what an adventure that could have been.

As I walked to get my lift, with my chicken, cranberry and brie pie (which was as nice as it sounds), I noticed that every shop seemed to have a beautiful woman working there - I started to think that Akaroa would be a nice place to live!

I was picked up by Jeff, the owner of the hostel, who was your typical friendly farmer who didn't understand why anyone would want to leave there. His driving was a bit crazy and he crushed my bag of food but I liked him.

Onuku Farm Hostel is paradise - it reminded me of Torr Farm (i.e. home) and Treyarnon Bay rolled into one. There weren't many guests there when I arrived, it was mainly just the staff and the residents: Tom (from Leeds) who was the manager, Graham the furniture designer, Bob and Twila (from USA) who come here every year and work on their holiday (!?), and Deb and Andy who have just started working there - I have met them on frequent occasions since Taupo (6 weeks ago!) - I suspect they may think I am stalking them. The Atmosphere in general is superb and extremely chilled out - A perfect place to finish my adventures in New Zealand.

The farm itself is a 1000 acre sheep farm with its own nature walks and a variety of animals: chickens, peacocks, pigs, cows and, of course, lots and lots of sheep! The summer hut I was staying in was very basic - just a few beds, a sink and a candle. There were some excellent showers and a long drop toilet nearby as well. As no-one else was staying in the summer hut, it was essentially only $10 (4 quid) for my own room!

I tried out one of the walks straight away as Andy and I went downhill to the swimming beach. It was only a short walk there and a dip in the sea was very refreshing but the walk back was very steep and I had to confront a bull in the bottom field so it took a bit longer! That night, Andy, Deb and I played pokerdice and I tried out one of the stargazers which was nice but a bit obscured by the trees.

The next morning, I wanted to watch the sunrise and Andy wanted to go too which really put the pressure on getting up early. I managed to get up at 4.45am and we both set off up the hill to try and get the best view of the sunrise. There was a lot of low level cloud cover when we set off so we got a bit lost ambling up the hill. When we got above the clouds though, it was still dark and the moon and the stars were still out. The view across the harbour was eerily calm and, in the distance, waterfalls of clouds cascaded into the valleys.

We decided to go off the track and walk up the steep hill side. However, every time we got to the top of the hill, there was another hill blocking the view of the approaching sunrise. We also had to vault over some barbed wire fences and we worried for a second that some of them could have been electrified. After an hour of hiking we reached our goal and we were able to view the sunrise over a sea of clouds - the view just took my breath away (and I was bloody knackered too!) - it really was a beautiful sight and it's moments like that that make you feel good to be alive. We had to take a photo of the two of us to prove to the others that we had actually bothered to get up and as we walked back down we thought that the photo could be captioned "Sunrise over the Andys".

We got back to the farm (which was still enveloped in clouds) for some breakfast before I was due to go out on the boat with Tristan (Jeff's son) in the hope of swimming with the rare Hectors Dolphins. We were informed by Tom that the morning that ,for such a large farm, we still managed to go onto the neighbouring farm by accident!

It was Tristan's first charter of the season so we didn't know what to expect - sometimes the dolphins just aren't in the mood. So, I got kitted out with some flippers, a mask and snorkel and a wetsuit and we went out on the water as soon as we could.

The clouds started to burn off as we set off on the boat and straight away the dolphins came up to the boat - there were only a few of them but the Hectors Dolphins are very special - they're very small (on average only 1.3m long) and they have rounded dorsal fins. They are likened as the teddy bears of the sea and for good reason - they're so cute! I jumped right in and swam with them for about 40 minutes - they're very inquisitive creatures by nature so they came right up to me, looking straight into my eyes and as they're smaller breed of dolphin, I was actually able to swim with them, instead of them just swimming past me at lightning speed!

After a while they needed to go and feed so I jumped back into the boat and Tristan took me up the coast to see some other parts of the farmstead and even more wildlife - there were blue finned penguins and a seal colony around the headland. We explored some caves and he showed me the Nikau Palm reserve which is protected by the DOC (Department of Conservation) even though it's on their land.

On the way back, we were approached by two larges pods of dolphins (there must have been about 60 of them!) and they were in a playful mood. As there were no other boats in the water, we were the centre of attention, so I jumped in again. It was an amazing feeling to be surrounded by all of those dolphins. I could tell that Tristan was chuffed to pieces as well because as we went to make our way back to land, the dolphins still wanted to play and they were chasing the boat - he larked around with them for about half an hour and they were jumping clear out of the water on both sides of the boat.

It really was a magical experience and by by far one of the highlights of my trip. Possibly one of the best days in my life.