Akaroa - 20.9

Strange city-tour shuttle left Christchurch at 8:30. I say weird as it seemed just like a regular shuttle taking people from point A to point B, but at some point the driver started talking about houses all around us and giving out facts like population of Christchurch and so on :) It was strange, getting out of town we also switched vans and then we got one very talkative lady for the driver :) Anyhoo, as time passed and more facts followed I took it I had entered a tour taking me from Christchurch to Akaroa - this was completely fine with me.

Views were beautiful as always. As Lonelyplanet tourguide informs me, Akaroa is situated on the Banks Peninsula and its hills were formed by two giant volcanic eruptions. Historic town of Akaroa is the highlight of the peninsula, the name means 'Long Harbour' in Maori and is the sight of the country's first French settlement. Everything in the town is trying to re-create the feel of a French provincial village, with it's street names, houses and eateries - in my mind it was doing a splendid job at that, it was full of doll-houses located on pretty street names :)

On this weird shuttle-city-tour bus I met a group of 3 from Minnesota :), they had booked a trip to go swimming with dolphins. I headed to Akaroa to see the dolphins as well, but was not very keen on getting in the water at all (as it is cold here). After their talk about dry-suits and all the fun I figured to go and check it out from the tour providers. So as I found out there was still just one spot left on the tour, they were all out of dry-suits but wet suits would be fine as well they assured me. Apparently the water only gets up to 1 degrees around here even during the warmest time, at the moment water is fine with being 9 degrees :D Oh-uh :) Asking about other options to go out on the sea they still highly recommended swimming with dolphins as the best option - oh well, I guess I'm in then :)

The fuzz about the dolphins here is the fact that the smallest and rarest Hector's dolphins live at the waters around Akaroa, this is the only place in the world they are found at.

Had an hour to look around in this pretty town and then the show started! We were all given our suits, 3 people were doing the wetsuits thingie and others had dry-suits. Dry-suits looked so odd :) they were like astronauts :D Wetsuits were nice and thick, we also got boots + gloves + hoods + snorkels. Once I managed to put all the clothing on I looked like a Martian myself :) Few photos, safety talk and off we went. Long story short: we were chasing the things for 2 hours on very very stormy waters and in cold wind, we got to see the dolphins, but not swim with them. I'm kinda glad that we were not made to get in this freezing water. All looked fine in the shop, but once you are on the boat that almost tips over twice in 5 minutes with all those rough waves and the strong wind wants to blow your ears away - you really loose the interest in jumping in for a swim :)

We did get to see dolphins from the boat quite many times. They are little cute animals. We also saw a seal swimming and few tiny penguins. Tourguides took us over to see seals colony in one of the bays and we drove by a cathedral formulation by the cliffs. In the end I got to see everything promised on the other tours, only thing I did not get to do was swimming with dolphins in a 9 degree water :) For that we got refunded as promised, got hot-chocolate and a nice warm shower. I was happy in every sense :)

On our way back to Christchurch we got to visit the last cheese factory in the area, got to taste different cheeses and hear about cheese making. Rest of the way I slept - naturally :-P It is vacation after all ya'know :)

Tomorrow evening I'm flying on to Auckland. Check-out is at 10, will try to finally take a look at Christchurch itself as well and have a look at the ever so famous Antarctic Center.