We woke up at 5:00 AM this morning in anticipation of an amazing experience, and certainly weren't disappointed.

We checked out of our hotel and drove down to street to Encounter Kaikoura, a company that specializes in taking tourists on amazing adventures. Our adventure for the morning was swimming with Dolphins. I had done a dolphin swim in Perth and saw about 10 dolphins, but this was a completely different experience. Within the span of about an our, we saw hundreds and hundreds of dolphins, and on this trip we were allowed to swim freely. It was absolutely incredible and is something that everyone has to do at least once in their life. I can honestly say that this experience was life changing. (I have a bunch of video but it probably won't be ready for presentation for a couple months. I will be sure to send out notifications once I publish it.)

Interestingly during our dolphin swim we met Ralph Lee Hopkins who was the National Geographic photographer that would be joining us in Nelson the next day.

After the dolphin swim we had planned to take another boat journey to view the wild albatross but all of us had upset stomics from the rough sea so we forwent this trip. Instead we drove north to Ohau Stream to view the waterfall and with luck seal pups. The season wasn't right to view the seal pups swimming beneath the waterfall but we did see one making it's way downstream to the ocean.

We drove back to Kaikoura and reboarded the Coastal Pacific train which took us south to Christchurch. There we checked into our hotel, went to dinner at a local steakhouse, and then went to bed.

#2015trip