Nelly and Kelly See the World: Farewell New Zealand

It's hard to believe that our four weeks in New Zealand have come and gone! We spent our last two nights in Kaikoura, a fun little beach town on the east coast, known for its marine life.

So we figured we'd get the full experience and hop on a ferry out into the Pacific Ocean to get a better view of the dolphins. It did not disappoint! As we started out into the water, an albatross and its giant wingspan decided to join us and fly along in the boat's wind stream. Shortly thereafter we noticed some dolphins playing in the distance, and as we made our way closer, we discovered that they were not just playing amongst themselves, but with a giant sperm whale! It was an awesome sight, but without a license to whale watch we had to continue our journey out into deeper water...and all of a sudden dolphins were everywhere!

So I figured why not go for an even closer look?

About 15 others and I slipped into the water on four different occasions to play with the dolphins. To attract their attention, we kicked our flippers and tried to make interesting noises. I (of course) decided go sing. The song of choice? A derivation of Smashmouth's All Star: "Hey now, you're a dolphin, get your show on, come play!" Apparently dolphins are huge Smashmouth fans because I frequently had 1-4 dolphins swimming circles around me at an arm's length! What a terrific experience! As the time for our trip ran short, we headed back to the boat and started to make for shore...but the dolphins weren't done playing! They swam with us for a ways, almost directly beneath the boat.