christchurch day 3 – in search of dolphins in akaroa

day 3 looked like being the last near decent day weather-wise so we drove over to akaroa to search for the rate hector dolphins

i managed to log on to the cruise place’s website the night before and book us 4 places to avoid us being disappointed at the end of our windy journey. however when we got there we saw a lovely alternative company which seemed to be run by this little dog who could hear the dolphins sounds and help locate them

   

but we’d already booked on the bigger cruise so we stuck with that.

 

 

we arrived a bit early so spent a while looking round the shops. 

 

the shops seemed to have decided to only sell things beginning with the letter S

here’s kezia

 

and here’s me for a change

and here’s kezia again

akoroa is famously a french settlement and has some lovely old building

 

we didn’t hear anyone speaking french

but we did find a fudge shop

and once we’d had our picnic it was time to go over and get on our boat

 

here it is, in the sea

(quick loo stop first of course)

and jane texted a few friends back home in auckland just in case we were lost at sea

the girls dressed up warm

then off we went.

there was a nice commentary by the driver who pointed out various features and things which i’ve now forgotten

there were some sheep seemingly stuck on the edge of vertical hills

 

and this is known as the elephant or something

then suddenly someone sighted a hector’s dolphin

a solitary one which did a little nose round our side of the boat then disappeared

i got these snaps in the few seconds it went near us

the next 90 minutes of the cruise was spent wobbling about in the pacific.  the swell seemed quite large

we all felt quite sick , especially poor old esther.

here are some penguins.  we saw quite a few of them.  so we had the world’s smallest dolphin and the world’s smallest penguin in the world’s biggest ocean

here’s an albatross.  imagine having one of them as a necklace

there was plenty of nice scenery though when we could face looking over the side

and there’s a few new zealand fur seals (or something) here

as we headed in to shore the clouds started to gather

but the sickness of the sky offset the sickness of esther and all was well by the time we landed

on the way back to our holiday house we stopped at a cheese shop then again at the top of this hill

just like the view from the top of the gondola, this too is an extinct volcano hole

 

here’s the blurby (as they say) if you want to know more

and here’s how they deliver the post out in the sticks.  the post lady is eating a pie