An Early Start

I took a shower the night before, because I had to meet the Kiwi Experience bus in front of the hostel at 7:30 AM. After I got on, the bus had to drop off two people that had gotten on the wrong bus a day too early. The bus stopped at a coffee shop for breakfast, I had some eggs and toast (yum!), and met a few of the girls (Zoey, Katie, and Amy). The destination was Kaikoura, and the activity choices were whale watching, dolphin watching, dolphin swimming, and seal swimming. I went with dolphin swimming, and it was awesome.

They kit you out in a wetsuit, hood, booties, mask, snorkel, and fins. I really wish that they had given me gloves. After they show a short video, it's into a bus, then into a boat and out to sea. There were lots of dolphins. Hundreds, probably. I had cold hands, sooo cold. The video gave you tips on how to entertain the dolphins into interacting with you, but they mostly swam right by me. After the last swim, the boat found dolphins to take pictures of, and I took lots and lots of pictures. Only a small number of them turned out.

Kaikoura is an amazing place. There are mountains with snow on the peaks, and in the same frame, you can see the town and waves crashing on the beach. It's scenes like that that make me want a better camera, and a panoramic lens. I think someone said that the ski lodge is only about 50 kilometers from the town, it only operates in winter though.

We hung out at the hostel for a bit, then the bus took us to the grocery store, but I couldn't find any vegetarian stuff (where are you when I need you, Sanitarium?), so I went for takeaway (that's take-out to the yanks) pad thai when we got back. It was pretty good, but not really spicy enough. After dinner was drinking. Lots and Lots of drinking. I had a good time getting to know some of the people better. I met three girls from the Stray bus (they were hanging out with us that night): Amy, Lee, and Lisa. On the Kiwi Experience bus there's John, Sam, Anthony, Anna, Natalie, Katie (another one), Bernard (but he's going to the north island today), and the three I met before. I hear we're going to have a full bus today with all the people coming from the north island. I'm curious to know exactly how full is full. I went to bed at about midnight, I was too sniffly to keep going, and it was frickin' cold on the deck.