Day 7-Kaikoura

After a relaxing stay in Renwick in wine country, we headed south for our last stop before Chch.  Kaikoura!  Kaikoura is the dolphin and whale watching capital of the world and holds this title because of a huge underwater trench (there are only 5 in the world) that is 1 mile deep and several miles wide.  It is basically like an upside down empty mountain under the water!  The warm water from the Pacific Ocean meets with the cold water of the Arctic and pushes up lots and lots of food that explodes with nutrients as it reaches the surface.  It is very close to the shore, and therefore provides year-long sustenance for the dolphins and whales.  So they don't need to migrate.

Tomorrow we'll be swimming...in the ocean...with the dolphins!  I love and have always loved dolphins.  They are so playful and peaceful at the same time, and beautiful as they glide through the water.  I had so many dolphins all over my apartment at home, and have gone on a few tours to check them out in California.  I even have a book describing everything about my personality based on my birthday, May 28, and it describes dolphins as my power animal.  So it's a sign it was meant to be!  A lifelong dream of mine was to swim in the wild with them...and when I researched NZ over a year ago, the Kaikoura dolphin encounter has been on the top of my list since!

So today we arrived in Kaikoura.  The weather, however, was yucky!  Rainy, cloudy, super windy, and cold.  I was hoping, that typical to NZ weather, by tomorrow the weather would be clear for my once-in-a-lifetime experience.  We walked briskly through the beachy town, ducking into a few shops to stay out of the rain and cold.  Kaikoura is also known for paua (abalone) so we picked up a few souvenirs at the shell shop!  To warm up, we had a yummy seafood chowder at an organic cafe before relaxing back at the lodge we were staying at.

At the end of the day we enjoyed a lovely sunset over the mountains of Kaikoura while bundled up on the lodge's deck, and got to bed early to rest up for the dolphin encounter!