We drove to Akorao this morning, just as the sea mist was lifting over Christchurch. Akorao is about 90kms but about an hour and a half drive. We had booked a trip to swim with the dolphins, but they’re very clear when you book the trip that you are swimming with the dolphins in the wild, not some dolphinarium, and so there is no guarantee that they will play.
We drove over the most fantastic mountain pass out to the Banks Peninsula to get to the small town of Akoroa – it was once a French town and still has that feel – lovely little shops, cafes and galleries in the most picturesque of surroundings – mountains surrounding the deep inlet harbour. By this time, the sun was shining in a clear blue sky. We had some lunch then checked in at 1.30 for the 2pm trip. The dolphins here are the Hector Dolphins, the smallest type of dolphins at just over a metre long, found only in New Zeland, and they were dying out until protection in 1998. Now there are around 7,500 around the NZ coast, with a few thousand around the Akora area. We were kitted out with wet suits (the South Pacific around New Zealand is cold at around 17C), masks and snorkels.
Only ten people are allowed to swim in the area of the dolphins at a time, and there were nine on our boat and nine on a smaller launch from the same company – both would search different areas of the harbour inlet.
The boat (with no propellers, so as not to harm the dolphins or other wild life) set off and after about 15 minutes we spotted a couple of dolphins. It had been explained to us that they are very playful creatures and if they wanted to, they would seek us out by coming towards the boat, But if they had young calves with them, we were not allowed to go out to them as it would frighten them. A few minutes later, more were spotted and so we jumped off the boat, hoping they would approach. They didn’t and it was a bit disappointing, thinking that although seeing them was wonderful, the treat was to be ‘swimming with dolphins in the wild.’ We got back on the boat and the skipper circled around for another ten minutes or so, seeing pods of two or three dolphins at a time, but they showed no interest in us. Then, a few started coming towards the boat,ak51 showing they were willing to play, so we stopped again and into the water we went. Then many more approached, each time in pods of two, three four or five at a time and it was the most amazing feeling, swimming with these mammals a few feet away, and sometimes swimming right under our legs.
Absolutely wonderful. A brilliant trip and when we went back to the harbour, we felt even luckier as they nine people on the other boat had spotted many dolphins but not had the opportunity to swim with them – each time they went into the water, the dolphins swam off.
We arrived back in Christchurch at about 6pm and Norman and Beryl (remember them, from Vietnam?) had arrived at the campsite with Beryl’s sister Valerie, who lives in New Zealand and has been touring with them for the past couple of weeks. We had a lovely meal on ‘the strip’ in the centre of Christchurch – a strip of very upmarket restaurants on the River Avon. Coffee back in our motel apartment room at the campsite followed and as it’s now gone midnight and they’ve just left, it’s time for bed. Today was another wonderful experience.
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