Today is not about cycling or walking but swimming. But a magical swimming experience in a beautiful setting. We trundled through the suburbs of Christchurch heading north. The road looped inland through green hills with a short stop in the pretty town of Cheviot. As we wound down the last hill the first views of the Pacific emerged, blue and sparkling in the sun.  The road hugged the beautiful rocky coastline – a road that had been closed for an extended period following the earthquake in 2009. Seals were basking in the sun, and we glimpsed a few dolphins close to the shore.

The town of Kaikoura straddles two large bays bisected by a small spit.  The area is home to several pods of dusky dolphins – so called because of their bluish/black backs. The dolphins are attracted to the bay because just a kilometre off shore is a deep sea trench that contains lots of good things to eat when they rise up near the surface during the night. This also means the dolphins feed at night and spend the day nearer to shore gambling about in the water.

The Dolphin Experience takes trips out where as a ‘swimmer’ (rather than a spectator) you can get into the water with the dolphins.  This came as part of our trip package and I felt a bit uncomfortable about the prospect; but we were assured that the dolphins remain completely wild.  They are not fed but dolphins are curious creatures and like to investigate what is going on when the boats arrive.  We were also warned that sometimes they don’t play ball and we may not see them at all. The boats go out with a licence from the Department of Conservation with strict limits on the number of boats, the number of people allowed in the water at any one time and the guides monitor the human activity to make sure it does not impact on the behaviour of the pods.

It was a beautiful sunny day. The waters can be very choppy and we were told sea sickness is very common but from a distance the blue waters looked calm.  Although closer up we found it was choppy enough.  I wouldn’t like to see what a windy day looked like. We were togged out with thick, very buoyant wetsuits, flippers and snorkels.  A short bus ride and then we joined a small boat heading out into the bay.  We were in luck and after a 30 minute glide along the coast, we were called up to prepare for our first swim. The boat is adapted with seats at the back almost in the water where you push off to swim.  When the boat stops and a horn blows – in you go. When the horn blows again you come back to the boat.

In all we had 5 swims, each lasting about 5 or 10 minutes and it was a truly magical experience. The pod of dolphins do exactly what they choose – they are in control.  They swim under us, and around us, sometimes got really close to us.  We were encouraged to make squeaky noises to attract the dolphins and soon we were all cheeping away into out face masks! When the pod wants to move on it does.  A couple of the swims I only saw a few dolphins but on a couple they were swarming round, including several mothers with calves.

After the final swim we clambered out of our wet suits and the boat gently chugged after the pod.  An estimated 200 dolphins then gave us an incredible display of swimming and acrobatics. They stayed around the boat for ages, happy to swim around and under the boat, rising and falling out of the water with some doing high jumps and twists and backflips. Dolphins come out of the water to breathe and we saw them spurt water out of their air holes, take a breath in mid air and then descend again. 

There are lot of theories about why the dolphins behave in this way but there seems to be evidence that they do it just for the joy of it, and it certainly looks that way to us landlubbers on the boat. At one point a seal appeared in the middle, flapping his flippers and the smaller dusky dolphins were joined by a larger bottle nose dolphin.  The guide explained that this was highly unusual but it first appeared with the pod a couple of years ago and reappeared a few weeks previously.  He said no one know why he has joined the wrong pod, but his behaviour is starting to mimic the behaviour of his new friends.  In the end it was the boat that had to turn and head for home as we were out of time, with the pod still splashing and churning the water.

As the boat was speeding back to the bay an albatross flew alongside the boat, probably for about 10 minutes. This beautiful bird with its large wingspan was almost as big a highlight as the dolphins.  We were told this was a young, small albatross but it flew at incredible speed with only the occasional flap of the wings, dipping and swooping along the water. A fantastic end to a memorable trip.