Ki Ora! That means “Greetings” in Maori. This is a typical New Zealand greeting. As I said earlier, the Maori culture is still evident in many facets of the typical New Zealander’s life. People also walk around with Maori Bone carvings around their necks. The Maoris have a strong culture, a culture that will soon not dissipate any time soon. I have good news! I am adding Video to my web blog. My cousin Chris is allowing me to store my video on his server. So, thanks to him you are going to see some amazing videos. Now that this is all possible, expect more video in the future! In my stories you soon will see a “blue link” . Click on this link, and then you will be asked, “Open” Save” “Cancel”. Click on “Open”. Its really easy! If all goes well, you should see my videos. If you run into a problem, just email me! I know my first email will be from my mother, she not very computer savy, although she is getting better! Thanks and enjoy!!!

Jumping on the Kiwi Experience bus View image
turned out to be one of the best decisions I had made. It brought me to all the best spots on the south island, without me having to buy a “Lonely Planet Book” and figure it out for myself. On the first leg of my journey I met a brother and sister from California. We immediately became friends, partly because we were the only Americans traveling giving us both a sense of comfort and also the fact that the sister was really cute!!!(HA-HA) Our Bus was headed for Kiakoura, a town just north of ChristchurchView image
. Kaikoura used to be the South Island's best kept secret. Kaikoura means to eat Crayfish (kai - to eat, Koura - Crayfish), actually the full name is Te-Ahi-kai-koura-a-Tama-ki-te-rangi (or Tamatea-pokai-whenua) the full name means 'This great traveller stayed here and lit a fire to cook a meal of crayfish'. These days its the Whales, Dolphins, Seals and the fish and chips that Kaikoura is becoming ever more popular for. There are two major activities here, one with Dolphin Encounter where you can either swim with the Dusky Dolphins where they generally average a pod of about 300, but they have been known to have 5000 at one time!!. Or whale watching. I was actually more interested in the whale watchingView image
, because it was here where the Discovery Channel did a documentary on the Sperm whale. I was all gung-ho on seeing these enormous mammals jump out of the water, until it hit me. I don’t know what it was but I had a sudden urge to go see swimming with the Dolphins. For some reason, I kept on thinking about my best friend who died in 1999, Brian. His favorite animal was the Dolphin, he even had them tattooed on him arm. So, at the very last minute, I switched my activity to go diving with the dolphins, in memory of my best friend Brian!
We arrived at our hostel, “Top Spot”. It was called ‘Top Spot” because it was situated on a hilltop over looking the ocean. This hostel had to be one of the best Hostels I’d ever been to, not because of the view, but the atmosphere. Top Spot was an old house re-renovated to accommodate 40 guests. The hostel had a very “homely” feel to it. There was a large kitchen to cook in connected to a large living room with a wood burning stove. What added to the cozy feeling was an old record player. The owner decided to have a record player instead of a CD player because he figured that no-one would be interested in stealing old records, after all we were all backpackers with limited room in our packs. The owner had heaps of great old records from Pink Floyd to ABBA. That night we ate muscles on the barbeque. Now these weren’t the small black kind of muscles I was used to but the huge green kind. The muscles were locally grown, and tasted 100 times better than any muscle I had had before. Normally, I could eat about +/- 20 muscles; but here I was only able to put down about 10 before feeling an extended abdomen. That night after dinner we all watch the sun go down. The sunset wasn’t the best I’d had seen but it was a sunset. Later, after everybody had washed up, a bunch of us went outside and hung out on the deck. I don’t know if it was the wine I was drinking or the relaxed atmosphere that was created by the kid playing guitar, but I remembering looking up at the stars and thinking how happy I was with how my trip was developing.
The next morning I woke up at 5:30 am to get my gear ready to leave. I quietly placed my gear on the bus and headed out with a group of people to the Dolphin Encounters Shop. We were briefed on how to interact with the dolphins, and how to put all our equipment on. They fitted us in a 7mm wetsuit with booties, hoods, snorkels and finsView image
. They set 15 of us View image
on a large duel engine boat, in search of the playful Dusky dolphins. After a brief 10 minute search we saw the acrobatic dolphins a few hundred meters away. The Captain cut the dolphins off and blew a large air horn for us to jump in the water. We were instructed back at the shop to make funny dolphin noise threw our snorkels to peak the dolphin’s interest to come closer. Needless to say, you should have heard some of the noises people were making. I looked up once at the people still on the boat, laughing at the fact that 15 tourists were swimming around in ice cold water, making stupid dolphin noises. The first pod we encountered was a small oneView image
, about 25 in total. View image
It was great because the dolphins would just swim everywhere around youView image
. If you were View image
quick enough, you could even touch them. The captain then blew the horn for us to get back on the boat. He took us further; quickly we saw a big pod View image
of 300-500View image
dolphins jumping out of the water. The captain once again blew the whistle, and like a flash we were all in the water. What happens next was probably one of the best experiences of my life. Out of no-where there were dolphins everywherehttp://cfrobose.com/drkevin/dolphinSwim.MPG. It was just madness how many dolphins I had around me. A simple photo wasn’t good enough, so I switched my camera to video. I hope you enjoy the videos. The videos will give you a better idea of how I was feeling at that moment. The Dolphins were just so playful and free, kind of like my friend BrainDownload file. ( I have a few other great videos, but I am still waiting for my cousin Chris to send me links for these!) He never cared about what people thought or did, he just always enjoyed life! I did this dolphin trip for Brian, and thank God I did. I have no regrets about not seeing those sperm whales!! We swam with the dolphins for an hour or so, and then we headed back to the shop. I took a quick shower and when I went outside where I met the Kiwi bus that was waiting to take me to our next destination, the beautiful town of Nelson! How will it be possible to top this trip.
I couldn't post all the photos here in the stroy, so if you're interested in viewing the other photos and videos I made, then go to the Catagory "photos" then click on "Dolphins". Enjoy