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Having been unable to book on a trip our first time in Kaikoura, we headed back there from Christchurch. We stayed in Dusky Lodge again, and had an early night to prepare for our 4.50am start the next morning.

Despite the early morning, the trip was great. There were hundreds of dolphins in the water that morning. The captain would stop the boat once he saw a group of dolphins and then we would all hop out of the boat in our snorkel gear and swim towards the dolphins. They are attracted to sound so all of us had to sing through our snorkels to attract them further. Four or five swam right past my face. It was great seeing them swimming and jumping in the water after we had finished our snorkelling, and the sunrise that morning on the boat completed the trip.

We left Queenstown at 4.30am to make our boat for the trip to Doubtful Sound. It was well worth it. We had beautiful weather and the small boat was a good choice. We had delicious food – scones in the morning, homemade soup, sandwiches and cakes for lunch and more cake in the afternoon. Doubtful sound is an endless tunnel of fjords and like nothing I had ever seen before. As an added bonus there were lots of dolphins swimming around the area that day. At one stage a school of four were swimming by with the boat for about 10 minutes. The captain said that it was likely that the dolphins were so attracted to the boat that day because of all the female attention they were getting! (Us six, plus the our or five other women on the boat had all been enthusiastically leaning over the side of the boat to see them).

We stayed in Te Anau that night and then left early in the morning to go and see Milford Sound. Unfortunately the weather was awful that day so we didn’t get to see much of the sound. It would be unfair to make a comparison but Doubtful Sound was a much better day for us!

Our plan was to go swimming with dolphins in Kaikoura as our next stop, however when we got to Kaikoura the trip was all booked up for the next few days. A quick change of plan brought us back on the road the next morning to leave for Christchurch. The weather was pretty grim the whole day so we stayed indoors once we got to there, staying in Excelsior hostel. Due to the earthquakes, Christchurch is down about 800 hostel beds, making it quite difficult to get accommodation. The weather had cleared up by the next morning so we had a stroll around town and a look in the Cathedral before heading off on the road again to Lake Tekapo.

Having been joking about the danger of earthquakes in Christchurch, we just barely missed another aftershock, the morning after we left thanks to our last minute change of plans!