Dolphin discovery day...

This morning we woke up early, excited for our boat ride in the beautiful bay of islands. We had a cooked breakfast with Robyn and Snow before driving back to Paihia harbour ready to board the dolphin watching boat. It was a big, bright yellow boat with an open top deck, back and front and an indoor bit in the middle. Me and matt hung out at the back, hanging over the edge and feeling the sea water spray slap us in the face! it was fun!

The cruise took us all around the beautiful bay of islands, all the way up to the famous hole in the rock and drifted past the secluded, almost untouched bays. We were searching for dolphins for about 3 hours before we finally found a pod of about 12 dolphins that swam right up to the boat. Swimming all around us and showing off, jumping in and out of the water.

We were hoping to actually jump off the boat in wet suits and swim with the dolphins, but there were a couple of baby dolphins in the pod and the females tend to be very overprotective of their young. Due to them being wild, on this occassion we weren't able to swim with them. We weren't too disappointed though because the cruise of the islands was fantastic and we were really up close to the dolphins.

After our boatrip we sat on the beach and caught up with some of Matt's old school friends. We chatted for a bit before driving to The Black Olive; a small restaurant in the nearby town, Kerikeri. There we met Robyn and Snow and sat outside to enjoy a lovely dinner as the sun went down. After dinner we went to the cinema in Kerikeri to see the new 'Avatar' film. It was brilliant. The cinema was tiny too!...thats just the way they are over here!

It was quite late when we drove back to Robyn and Snow's house and we were tired after a long day. On the way back we drove over a possom!! Jackpot for the Kiwi's...awful for the aussies.

it's strange to think they are so hated in NZ while they remain a protected species in Australlia!