New Zealand: Abel Tasman, Nelson & Wellington: 11-15 Feb

After Kaikoura I was on a real high thanks to my new friends the dolphins. I was also happy to be going to AbelTasman, when I was researching where to go in NZ that came up as one of the places I really wanted to see because it’s another untouched paradise being a national park.  I had to go a little out of my way to get there as I needed to end up back in Picton which we were passing through, to get the ferry back to Wellington on the North island.

It was also time to leave Snowflake’s bus and get on another; this time the driver was a girl whose nickname was Motors. She got the nickname because she’s got whopping great boobs and once, as legend has it, got everyone on the bus to motorboat them as they left the bus! Haha. She actually was really fun and nice. It was also good to get off the bus I’d been on and see what the others were like. Motors’ bus was a totally different vibe. Equal split girls to guys, and more solo travelers so they were friendlier. I breathed a huge sigh of relief and felt happy to find a normal group of travellers.

The busses usually stop on the way to the destinations to look at some interesting sites dotted around the countryside, and this day there were more than usual so it took most of the day to reach Abel Tasman. At one of the stops there was a river with a deep pool in the rocks that was so clear you could see every grain of sand on the bottom. It was 6-8m deep and was a beautiful emerald green colour. I climbed down to dip my feet in it, and someone from the bus came over for a chat. I had a funny feeling that he looked familiar, but thought nothing of it. It was only after he recognised my SA accent and told me he grew up in Zimbabwe that it clicked. This was Martin, the son of very close friends of my parents - his dad Phil was a priest for a time at the church we went to growing up. Unbelievable coincidence, seeing as I was on a bus in a remote part of NZ as far away from London as possible. Small world huh? We both had our socks knocked off with surprise. It was so nice for me to see a friendly familiar face too.

We passed Picton and then Nelson, this is supposed to be the sunniest region of NZ. There were lots of apple farms dotted around, and some of the trees had white netting over them. Motors told us these were the apples that were exported; they were covered in white netting to keep them crunchier and less blemished. The uncovered ones they sell in NZ, she said with a hint of irony. A very strange thing about this country is that all the best local produce; wine, fruit, even stuff like bread is cheaper overseas than it is here. The wine especially, it comes from down the road but its way more expensive than buying it in the UK. I just don’t understand why. The bus took a sharp right turn into the windy, steep road to Abel Tasman. It twisted and weaved up the mountain pass, struggling and heaving as it was an old bus this time. The hills became very lush and green with cicadas screeching happily in the trees with warm, humid air floating in the bus. So different to the harsher light and eery emptiness of the mountains further South.

We reached our destination within the national park, a place called Marahau, which only exists to service the park. It’s a couple of camping and kayaking shops, a cluster of little restaurants just at the park’s entrance and some backpacker hostels. The one we were staying at was Old Macdonald’s Farm, and it was more like a caravan park/camping site than a backpackers. I had already chosen to stay in a tent, one of those big one’s with camper beds, as it was $20 a night instead of $27. As we drove our bus up to our area though I noticed that the ‘cabins’ were seriously minimal, tiny little sheds crammed with a bunk bed and a single bed with hardly room to move and all the portaloos and showers were outside like a campsite anyway, so not really sure what the extra $7 was for.

Motors bought tons of food for a barbecue courtesy of the Stray Bus which was nice, for all 40 of us. We all helped in the cabin kitchen, and the gas stove/barbecue griddle was my duty to get started. After the German guy who was helping me ran out of ideas on how to start it, I went around to the back through the bushes to twiddle with some gas knobs. I turned one lever, and he gave it a go and the gas lit. I turned the other lever, and nothing. After a few attemps lighting matches and failing to ignite it, he gave it one more go and then a huge gas fireball exploded out the cooker and took all the hairs of my right forearm and singed a nice little halo around his hair and eyebrows. ‘My hair, my hair! Is it still there??’ He was wide eyed with shock. And it was mostly, thank goodness! Haha, poor guy. I swiftly turned that gas lever off.

A small group of us decided to take a sailing boat in the morning to one of the bays 13km away from our camp in the morning, and then walk back in the afternoon. The kayaking people and the sailing people were in disarray because someone was getting married that weekend and had closed offices, but they all managed to get everyone in the right direction eventually in the laid back, easy way of people working outdoors. Our sailing boat skipper was another pure man of the sea, long blonde scruffy locks and leather soles to his feet which probably never saw shoes. He cracked some good jokes too; ‘So welcome on board for your trip to Fiji, it only takes somewhere between 10-14 days. You brought enough food to last that long right?’ He also let me steer the boat while he got the sails ready. I asked which direction to go in. ‘Over there’ he gestured vaguely to the horizon. Er, okay. I just tried to go straight, and at least we didn’t end up in Fiji.

The day started out cloudy and windy, 

and we crossed fingers and toes for sunshine because that is when these golden beaches are at their best. It was so chilly on the boat to start off with that I had to wrap my hoodie around my ears. We sailed up to some of the bays, looking at the tiny bushy islands dotted around which got incredibly loud with insects and birds as you got closer. 

We were also taken to some rocks around one island where lots of seals were lazing with their fat little babies, see if you can spot them here.

We were told that they are thriving in the area. We sailed lazily around until we came into a bay protected by some islands. In low tide you could walk across it but in high tide it was 4m deep and you could see the bottom clearly as the boat sailed over the clean clear water. The water was a beautiful blue turquoise colour, and the sand golden. You could not Photoshop more vivid colours. Totally different to the East coast and inland on the South island where everything is grey pebbles. We pulled onto a golden beach for lunch as the clouds completely disappeared and the big warm yellow sun broke out and belted down on the sand. I jumped straight out the boat and spread myself out in the warm sand like a starfish for some full body sun worship. We ate the sandwiches I had made for lunch; wholemeal rolls with pesto, tomato and cucumber with some bananas and peanuts from the food stash. Some funny fat NZ beach ducks came to eat the bread out of Martin’s hand. After I had heated up to boiling point I went straight into the turquoise crystal clean water. It was so clean I could open my eyes and see meters ahead of me – as if I was looking at a blue sky of water above with white sand for grass below - and my eyes didn’t sting at all. It was cold but I spent a long time holding my breath and doing dolphin dives, so refreshing I wanted to breathe the water in. THIS IS THE LIFE.

Martin realised that he left his shoes on the boat just as it pulled away from the beach, but wasn’t bothered in the slightest. He was going to do the whole walk back on the path through the thick park bush barefoot. I didn’t bat an eyelid, I knew he had a childhood in Zimbabwe and was an outdoors adventurer, but the people with us were totally shocked. 13km in no shoes, when they had their best walking boots on! Haha. I had my trusty Crocs, which I used to mock people for wearing but are the most ridiculously practical shoe for travelling near water on the planet. Big heavy shoes with socks that get soaked every time you have to walk through water and then stink and are covered in mud the rest of the time? Um, no thanks.

Our group walked through the well worn path through the think ferns, trees and indigenous plants that make up the park. Every time you turned a corner there’d be huge turquoise blue view of the sea with dark green islands and golden sand beaches spread out below. 

Every now and again Martin would stop and explain something interesting to us about the birds or bugs that live there, at one point putting one bug in his mouth (but not chewing, making it like a cave) to demonstrate how this type of bug only makes a noise when it can see light. Definitely a Zimbabwean at heart! I really wanted to see a Kiwi bird but they only come out in the dark. They are such weird looking things, they look like this. No wonder they are nearly extinct, poor little weird birdy. 

We walked all 13km (about 3.5 hours), stopping at some of the beaches to snack on dates and chorizo that Martin had in his pockets, to the park’s entrance and were very hot and had sunburnt noses. Conveniently at the end was a rustic restaurant that sold gourmet pizzas and yummy NZ beer. I only had the beer, have to watch the pennies! But we went back to the crazy caravan park that was our hostel and had left over sweet potatoes and onions from the barbecue the night before, and some avocado and tomato salad with corn on the cob. We drank some wine and got bitten by sandflies and mosquitos while Martin told me about his insane exploits while travelling, which including him almost dying in the outback in Australia trying to escape a madman he was working for!

The next day I was to leave Abel Tasman and go back on myself to Nelson and then Picton, where I was catching a ferry to Wellington on the North island. Motors gave me a lift as far as Montueka where I bid farewell to the Stray Bus and headed for a cafe with internet so I could figure out how to get back to Nelson. Well, there were two buses. One at 7.30am (it was 10.30 now) or at 5.30pm. Very sorry to the White’s if you are reading this, I know I said I wouldn’t hitchhike after being warned! But during my entire South island trip I saw tons of hitchhiking backpackers including solo girls, and after speaking to my bus drivers and people working in the area I was told that this was probably the safest place in the entire world to hitch a ride. Also it was only 46km to Nelson, so I promised myself that I’d only get into a car with a couple or a female. I placed myself strategically at the exit of the big supermarket at the edge of town and on the road to Nelson, and within 7 minutes a very sweet British couple picked me up. Perfect! They were travelling around NZ in their hired car, and were going to stop in a village not far for lunch and then go on to Nelson. I told them I wasn’t in a hurry and I went to the little village with them, which turned out to just be a collection of shops and galleries and a fish and chips restaurant on the bay so we didn’t stay long. We passed about 30 young backpackers hitching on the way there, so I had chosen the best position in town.

We got to Nelson and they told me about the backpackers they were staying in, so I just went along to see if there were any dorm beds left there. It was a great little place but totally full, so I bid them farewell after apologising profusely for leaking half a bottle of pesto from my shopping bag on their car floor, and went off to find another hostel. The closest one on the map was called The Palace but it took around 25min in the afternoon heat to find it. When I did I saw that it was on a very busy road next to a petrol station, great. The entrance on the road led you up a very windy and impossible stairway when you’re carrying a heavy bag, up through some ferns and there perched on the hill was a very unexpectedly pretty big old house that was The Palace.

I was very happy to be somewhere that wasn’t with a bus full of travellers on the main tourist trail, and it was leafy and quirky and one of the oldest buildings I had seen in NZ so far. It had a big old kitchen and dining room, and a nice TV room with comfy sofas next to big open windows, so I breathed a sigh of relief and plugged in all my gear. There were no plugs, internet or anything vaguely practical for travellers in the tent in Abel Tasman. My room was in another building tucked down some more stairs on the property, and it was its own small house with its own kitchen and bathroom and proper beds, for the 6 or so people staying there which was nice.

I made some lunch and bedded down in the TV room, and no one came in so I had it to myself. Even though the hostel was supposedly full that day, there was hardly anyone around except the people that worked there. It was actually a really weird place, because even that evening I only saw one or two people. There were lots of little rooms and cabins dotted around, and at around 8pm I heard some people laughing and chatting and found a little room outside decked out with trippy wallpaper and psychedelic wall hangings. All the people working there and one or two guests were crammed in smoking pot and playing a game, ‘everything must die’ or something like that. It’s when you draw a picture, of say cowboy. Then the next person has to draw something killing that, like an Indian. It was handed to me, and I had to kill a toaster that had just killed a knight in metal armour by electrocuting him (?). So I drew a bathtub with the toasters wire going in it and passed it on. Still confused about where all the guests were and feeling this was a strange little hostel, I went off to bed laughing at their weird game and funny drawers.

Nelson is a strange place. Its population is only 70k but it felt like a much bigger town, all industrial with huge warehouse-like supermarkets on one long street. There is a beach somewhere apparently but I never saw it, I think I stayed in the bum part.

The next day I dragged my bag a few blocks to the bus station where I was getting a bus to Picton. It was the most comfortable bus I’d ever been on, but you weren’t allowed to eat and it was a 2 hour drive. I sneaked some grapes in anyway. The drive was pretty and green to Picton. My ferry was at 1.15pm and I got there at 12pm, enough time to mooch around the ferry terminal and a teeny bit of the town. It’s quite small and seems that its full purpose is to be the gateway to the South. Even the ferry terminal was spotless, with no rubbish near the water which was still sparkling clean with birds and wildlife.

The ferry was massive, 8 floors! I think it’s the biggest ship I’ve been on. I was nervous about seasickness but it was so big that I didn’t feel it. The ferry was 4 hours or so, I thought it was only 2 hours but it was a very nice ride. You could sit up on the deck and watch the South island slip away from you, with its many jagged islands and peninsulas with boats and birds galore. As we got near the North island and Wellington, there were even dolphins jumping alongside the ship!

I got off the ferry and collected my luggage, and then waited 25 mins for the ferry shuttle to take me into town, which turned out to be a 4 min drive to the train station. Tsk. By this time it was 5.30pm and I had been up and travelling since 8.30am so I did something very extravagant and got myself a taxi to my hostel which was $18! Eek. I thought that I might be meeting a friend that Carrina in London had emailed about me being in Wellington for one night, but it turned out that she was having a romantic Valentine’s Day dinner with her boyfriend. Yes, it was the universal day of love and I was all alone in Wellington so I was going to be even more extravagant and take myself out to dinner to cheer myself up.

I stayed at the Trek Global hostel and it was extremely new and institutional and felt like I was in a prison. I was in ‘the sanctuary’ on the top floor which was supposed to be an all girls floor. The hostel has about a million really heavy doors that you have to beep through with your door card, and after carrying heavy bags after a long day of slogging this is enough to make your blood boil. It turned out that I was in a teeny box room with a window the size of a handkerchief so high up you couldn’t see out of it, with one other girl in the lower bunk. This was the sanctuary? More like a low security prison for the mentally unhinged backpacker. At least the all girls bathroom had a hairdryer and a hair straightners, I could make myself look hot for date with my travelling cat Farigo at least.

Wellington is artsy and cute with trams and some pretty old buildings. It felt like the only place that really had any subculture since I’d been in NZ, with the exception of some hippies near Nelson. Cuba Street has all the dive bars, comedy clubs and quirky restaurants, so I took a walk to check it out and see if there was anywhere suitable on Valentines night for a lone backpacker and her wooden cat.

But it was all a little too public for me. I took a walk to another street that Carinna’s friend told me about which turned out to be a little alleyway tucked away, with a cosy gastro pub selling a good range of NZ beers and yummy looking gourmet pizzas. There also weren’t any couples being romantic in there which sold it to me. The pizza was indeed very yum, Cajun chicken with jalapenos and red onion. And the ale was good too, they brew some good beer over here.

The next day I took a short tram ride through this cute little city past the suburbs with the late Victorian terraced houses to the airport, where I boarded effortlessly and punctually (as is the NZ way) to Auckland. I like Wellington, it’s somewhere I could picture myself living.

I arrived in Auckland for my last night to see the newlywed Macfies and Te and Chris. I gave Bex a call and surprised her, she thought I was coming the next day, but she sweetly picked me up from the airport and took me to her cute retro house that belonged to her grandmother. That evening we met Te with some of her old work friends including Hayley from the wedding in a great little bar / eatery in the hipster area of town. This is where Bex and Te would love to live, but kind of like Dalston in London its way overpriced. The bar made me feel like I was in East London a little, but with some New Zealand hipster charm. The food was really bloody tasty, I had Welsh Rarebit and some delicious wine, so we drank and ate and smoked too many Vogues, I had such a nice time. Chris and Te came back to the Macfie’s pad and we drank some more citrus vodka that Te fished out her handbag, and chatted into the wee hours. Aw I’ll miss my darling fun NZ friends that I have to leave behind quite a bit! The next day Bex drove me back to the airport with our hangovers, it was time to say good bye and fly to Australia.

My overall impression of New Zealand is this: It’s exquisitely clean and has beautiful untouched nature and wildlife. It has the best seafood I’ve ever had, anywhere. It’s small but has majestic scenery and coastline which makes it feel less claustrophobic. Kiwi’s seem very proud of their country and their jobs and work with smiles and dedication for all the tourists which is so nice to witness. Even down to supermarket checkout attendants or bus drivers, who all make you feel like they’re your helpful aunties or uncles. Everything is on time, all the time. It’s the most punctual place on the planet, and everyone seems so law abiding. It seems quite 1950’s England, but the British descendents are proud of Maori culture and have sort of adopted it as their own. It feels like a happy, uncomplicated existence where everyone is friendly to each other with no class division (the only kind of division is with immigrants which is normal for any country), but may be a little lacking of subculture for someone interested in different things, although there is still a few things going on for people who are.  It’s really expensive, some things so much more expensive than even London.

Well, that’s my take on it I may be completely wrong! But I can definitely see why living there would be a happy existence.

I’d definitely recommend travelling there at least to see one of the least affected negatively by humans countries on earth, but if you want to steer clear of 18 year old Europeans maybe research tour bus options. Travelling on your own can be very lonely too as it seems 90% of people over 25 are in couples and not interested in talking to weird lone travellers like moi!

New Zealand: Mount Cook, Rangitata & Kaikoura 8-11Feb12

Mount cook 8-9 Feb 12

We drove through the Omarama region on the way to Mount Cook. Flat plains surrounded by high, jagged mountain ranges, many over 3000m high. Snowflake told that these were some of the biggest and oldest sheep farms in the country with some of the farms at 20,000 acres or more. It is also seriously remote, not a soul for miles. This is one of the most famous places for gliding (engine-less gliders) in the world, with the world record flight of 15 hours done here. The land and grass was still brownish and flat with grey stony river beds with turquoise rivers, some of which had been diverted from bigger lakes to feed the farms in the area.

Mount Cook / Aoraki is the highest peak in the Southern Alps of NZ, at 3700m. The national park is 40% covered in glaciers which feed the lakes and rivers in the area with a certain ground up compound scraped from the mountains that makes the water murky white near the glacier and then bright turquoise running into the rivers far beyond it. 

Driving up to the peak was quite eerie and spectacular, very Lord of the Rings-esque. Still all the grey stoney pebbles everywhere instead of normal sand or mud which I really love. It feels like such a different land, volcanic and ancient and glacial. Still wasn’t speaking to anyone much or feeling sociable but at least we left the German under 18 hockey team in Queenstown to drink and fornicate to their hearts content!

Mount Cook National Park has one long road to get there it seems and as you come up to it the mountain and glacier glare down at you with its huge presence.

We drove up to a hostel right up against a mountain. There didn't seem to be much there at all, other than small chalets, a hostel, a hotel and some campervans. Not really a place you could spend days in, unless you were a mountaineer. They offered trips out on a boat to the glacier’s edge, or as an alternative Snowflake told us he was taking a walk up the mountain to one of the glaciers. Free, so we all jumped at it.

The walk was up the mountain through the grey stones and there were plenty of walkers but it was still eerie with a sharp, harsh light and brisk wind, and the sun singeing you every time it burst its erratic lazer through the clouds. We walked for ages and finally got to the glacier itself, and here the water was grey white with big blocks of 300 year old ice floating around in it. Pretty awesome.

The hostel was really nice, 4 bed dorms with super clean bedding and our own en suite bathroom with bath, woohoo! You don’t see a bath much in hostels, so as soon as I got back from the long tiring walk I had one.

Dinner was the corn I bought at the shop, some microwave pasta and some Otago Pinot Noir (what the region is famous for). I had a chat to some of the travellers in the kitchen, this bus was a more friendly bunch so we had some nice conversation around the kitchen table. It was early to bed being achy and knackered from long walk and no sleep in Queenstown. Tomorrow, Rangitata.

Rangitata 9-10 Feb 12

We had to drive back down the same road to Mount Cook for about half an hour to get on another route to Rangitata. This is called Mackenzie country. The story goes that an Australian named Mackenzie in the 1800’s (no doubt of the criminal variety, Prisoner Of Mother England) came to live in the area to be a sheep farmer. He began a sophisticated method of stealing sheep from afar, and everyone knew he was doing it but could not for the life of them figure out how. It turns out he was using a collie dog to round up the sheep, a brand new method not yet known. This is how sheep dogs were born, and there is a statue dedicated to these clever doggies on the shores of Lake Tekapo.

 This area around Lake Tekapo has some of the clearest skies in the world. They have an observatory on a hill where astronomers from all over the world come to study the skies, and they have even set in motion turning the skies above the observatory and Lake Tekapo into a national park to make sure there is not light or air pollution, and a no fly zone. Very unfortunately the skies were grey that day, and a full moon so no stars to be seen that night.

The landscape started changing as we got to Rangitata, becoming more green and lush and quite hilly. It was also humid and rainy, ‘The land of the long white cloud’ is so true.  There were tons of fields with very fat, happy looking sheep and cows. Mass meat farming has not yet taken NZ as far as I know, and meat in the supermarket like bacon is very expensive which is very good to see. I also think they export a lot of meat and it seems the NZ lamb you can by in the UK is cheaper than if you buy it here. Along with wine and other food, very bizarre.

We were driving in the middle of nowhere amongst the sheep fields and lushness and found our hostel for the night, Rangitata Rafts. It was a big cabin like house with a wooden porch with garden tables and through some sliding doors was big open living room / kitchen area. There was an old wood burner and a some comfy sofas, definitely the most welcoming and homely of the backpackers so far. Everyone was so happy  be staying there as it was so quirky and rustic. The owners were a kiwi couple in their forties and were so laid back and down to earth, with the guy cracking jokes and taking his time checking all 30 of us in. ‘Don’t rush me, make yourself at home’.

The dorms had chunky wooden bunk beds three beds high, so the person at the top almost touched noses with the ceiling. They had obviously been custom made and they were really big and comfortable, like a big old tree house. There was only one shower room though, with a communal shower so we all just had to pile in (the girls that is) European style.

In Rangitata you can go white water rafting which looks very awesome, and horse riding off road. I was going to do rafting but decided to keep my dollars for Kaikoura. Instead we went for a walk in the forest area around the cabin, through some very lush forest. There was a big tree and a small waterfall...

In the evening the backpackers put on a barbecue for everyone for $10. There were some fat dodgy sausages (the sausages here are pretty bad, grey with no texture and tasteless, absolutely miles from British sausages or South African boerewors, absolutely miles). Some potatoes, white slices of buttered bread and coleslaw. We all gathered in the living room after the food and put on a movie, and I got out my little white typewriter and settled down to an evening of travel planning and writing.

Internet here is so ridiculously expensive. You get charged per megabyte, and its $5 per 50mb. I think I’ve spent around £50 on internet in total for my NZ stay.

Kaikoura 10-11 Feb 12

The next morning we got up early to drive to Kaikoura. As different people got on and off the bus the crowd starting getting more friendly, so I managed to have some good chats with a couple of people. 

The roads turned into more lush, hilly territory and you could start feeling the closeness of the sea by the air and smells. I was happy because the mountains in Mackenzie country are beautiful but the light very stark and the air very bracing and eerie.

I was excited for Kaikoura because I had heard it’s incredible for its sealife. Dolphins, seals, penguins, delicious sea food and all in totally unspoilt and beautifully clean South Pacific sea. I had also signed up for dolphin swimming (!) and fishing. Someone had told me about the fishing, it was only $80 / £40 and apparently involved eating as much crayfish fresh from the ocean as you could fit in your tum.

We were taken to The Adelphi hostel on the high street. It’s a mad old place with crazy wallpaper and really shabby rooms, quite like an old English sea side hotel. It had a huge collection of video tapes (all the hostels here still have video tapes and old video players, retro as heck) and one of those huge box TV’s that were the latest thing in the 90’s. It only cost $24 / £12 a night and you got free soup between 6pm-9pm.

We arrived at 1.30pm and after checking in the three of us who were going fishing got picked up. It was quite cold and rainy but I didn’t mind as I was pretty sure I’d get wet fishing anyway. At least I was able to use the expensive rain proof jacket I bought for the first time and maybe the last.

We got picked up in an old combi by a grisly looking fisherman called Nick. He drove us to the water’s edge where our small fishing boat and Gerry our captain was waiting. Nick had one prosthetic leg that looked utterly gnarly with a chewed wooden foot, and a few of his fingers were missing from the second joint. Along with his tattoos he was the closest thing I’ve ever seen to a real live pirate.

We set off for the now quite cold and wet horizon and I think this was the first time I’ve been out in a boat to open sea. I had no idea if I would be horrendously sea sick or not. The boat was bobbing up and down like a cork and flying up and down and hitting the water on each downward sway so hard that it felt like my stomach was going to drop right out, but I was okay to start. They drove to the first crayfish basket and hoisted it up.

Each fishermen is restricted to only 6 crayfish each a day and maybe that’s why they cost so much in restaurants. We were allowed to take 12, 6 for Gerry and 6 for Nick. We pulled up 3 baskets, and once all the crayfish were in the box – man they are crazy mad alien sea creatures kicking about – Nick got out his ruler and measured them to make sure he only took adults. The rest he just tossed back into the sea.

They then rode even further out to sea and got the fishing rods out for us. They literally dumped the rod in my hand although I had no clue how to use it, and let the line loose in the water. The line just wheeled off like crazy, into the depths, and I’m serious that 30 seconds later I felt the first tug. I was leaning against the boat to steady myself, with the thing tipping and diving like a rollercoaster still, and wheeled in my first fish.

I was staring right into the water (even writing this is making me feel sea sick!) and I felt a wall of dizziness hit me over the head. If you’ve ever been sea sick you know how horrendous it can be, argh it’s so horrible and there is nothing you can do about it. I put my line back out and about a minute later wheeled in another fish, and then had to sit down and turn green with my head spinning out of control and my fingers going numb. Look to the horizon if you’re ever sea sick! You need something to steady your eyes.

The others were pulling them fast too. This area of New Zealand is known for its amazing ocean basket of bountiful fish, and thank goodness it is heavily monitored and conserved. The wildlife in Kaikoura alone is like being in a David Attenborough documentary about sealife. There are seals lazing on the rocks, penguins dipping in and out of the water and sea birds everywhere you look. Everything is crystal clean and feels almost utterly untouched, a place where people and tourism haven’t even dented the natural habitat of the sealife and is sadly probably one of the only places I’ve seen that has been so accessible to tourists, yet so pristine and perfect as if people were the minority species. How grateful I am to be here and accepting gifts as wonderful as this from the ocean.

I was an impressive shade of green at this point and the other two with us were heading the same way, so Gerry took us back to his place where the feast was to begin. All included in the £40 was a cook up of crayfish and some wine at Gerry’s. Being a Friday he invited his neighbours round, brought out copious amounts of local white wine, and put all 12 crayfish in a steam pot in his garden. He showed us how to do it... first you drown the crayfish in fresh water, and then put them in a pot and steam for 15 minutes only.

In the meantime, he prepared our fish and put it out for us with wasabi, lemon juice and soya sauce so we can try some of it raw. Now, I don’t know how many of you have gone fishing in the pristine open sea and then eaten your catch less than an hour later, but let me tell you it’s up there as an experience of happiness. After showing us how to properly eat the entire crayfish to the shell and sharing them amongst his friends and our driver Snowflake (only 3 of us went fishing from the bus but he invited Snowflake round for laughs) he poured tons of wine and we had a proper New Zealand fishermen’s piss up in his garden. He then wrapped up the rest of our fish, put 3 crayfish in a box along with 2 bottles of wine and got a huge pile of assorted veg that had grown in his massive veggie garden and sent us on our way. A crayfish when bought in a restaurant is $100 or more, and we got all of this and an afternoon of fishing for $80!

We stumbled back to our hostel, and the girl fishing with me went off to buy some chips. When she got back I had fried up all the rest of our catch in butter, steamed the veggies and we had another of the best meals of our life.

The next morning I had to get up at 4am to go... SWIMMING WITH DOLPHINS. I know right? Luckiest girl on earth and with the grumps well and truly left behind I shot up and walked down in the dark to the dolphin encounter office with another Dutch girl in the drizzle. We were 40 minutes early at 4.40am which is how excited we were. We got all our wetsuit gear and watched a safety video which was probably made in 2010 but looked like it was made in 1988. Every Kiwi person I’ve come into contact with working has been so helpful and friendly, and proud and happy to do their jobs like our two guides were so excited for us yet they do it every day.

I knew I’d be seasick again but I didn’t care. It was a bigger boat this time and much less gnarly than pirate Gerry and Nick’s boat. We set off into the open sea around 6am, this is the time that the dolphins have finished feeding in the deeper waters and are coming into the shore to hang out and socialise with their buddies. We headed out to the open sea, and only had to wait 30 minutes to find the first set leaping and somersaulting into the air but our guide and skipper knew that the dolphins were gathering all together and that those were just small pods. There were around 13 people on the boat, all girls again from the Stray Bus except for one token dude but they were nice ones this time, so happy and excited. We were all nervous about being dropped into the deep sea (800m deep) but the adventure overtook all that.

The signal sounded and we had all our wetsuit and snorkel gear in place ready to drop into the water. I was the first one in, it cold so it made you gasp but my head was straight down looking in the deep. And there were the dusky dolphins swimming and playing and headed straight for me!

To say this was an amazing experience just doesn’t quite explain how humbling, exhilarating, utterly thrilling and wonderful it was to be surrounded and circled by these animals. They are the only wild animals that like to socialise with humans – they are completely and utterly wild. No enticing is done by the boats, no feeding or anything of the like (unlike shark diving in SA). The conservation in this area is extremely strict. There are 3 thousand of them living in that area in New Zealand and they thrive on playing and being social with each other, and being entertained by humans. We were dropped into a pod of 200-300 dolphins, and at one stage I had five or so circling me, below and all around. One of them bumped me playfully. They also like to look you in the eye as that is a way of communication. There were even babies! They taught us to make funny high pitched noises to entertain them, and everyone was at it like a crazy snorkel choir. I had an underwater camera and I’m dying to get the pics developed, will upload them once I do.

We were allowed to be in the water for about 30 minutes in short bursts, and then had an opportunity to take pics of them from the boat. It was crazy to see hundreds of fins coming out the water as far as the eye could see, and them diving and dipping and somersaulting in the air going nuts. Unfortunately I was really sea sick at this stage and was wrapped in a blanket clutching a hard ginger biscuit, but I was watching them come right to the side of the boat and look at me peering down into their faces.

New Zealand you are a special, special place.

As soon as we got off the boat we were on the bus, no shower or anything. It was time to head to Abel Tasman. Happy girl J