Despite feeling when i left queenstown that my trip was almost over i still had a fair few things to pack in on my way back to the north island. Before heading up the stray tour does take you to the southern most town in newzealand, next stop being antartica. Apart form being the home of the most southern Mcdonalds in the world and home of the steepest street- ( which we climbed) View image

there wasn't a great deal to do in these towns but i have to say i well needed rest was due from all the adrenalin overloaded activites we'd being doing over the past couple of weeks. almost forgot we did go to caburys chocolate factory here's me getting a little to excited in the caburys shop View image

Next stop was christchurch, which again like most of the cities in New Zealand feel more like a town and not really what New Zealand is all about. So it was really just an excuse for a few nights outs.

Next we left for Kaikora, 8:00am with a stinking hanover and a bus drive- not the most fun journey i've had, but the hostel we stayed in recommended by Janna and Robyn back in oz was probaly the best i'd stayed in, with a pool and a spa and free cakes from the bakery (obviuosly the selling point for me) was a good cure for the hangover!! we had to have a restful day anyway because it was a very early start as we were swimming with the doplins tommorrow!!
Kaikora

So up at 4:50am and a walk under the stars by the beach to meet the crew at 5:45 am. After getting kitted up with a wet suit (which we always seem to have disaters with wet suits, maria in particluar He He although in this picture she looks very cute View image
) we set off for our 'dophin encounter'. We were informed that day that these dolphins were not enticed into the bay, they were completely wild, so we were not aloud to touch them and if anything we were there to entertain them!! So we sailed off in search of the dolphins whilst the sun was rising (New zealand being the first in the world to see the sun rise).

The first glimpse of the doplhins was quite overwhelming. That day there were 500 dolphins in one pod, i'll never forget looking out and hundreds and hundreds of dolpins, surrounding our boat in the early morning sunlight.

Basically the boat fog horn would sound when it was the right time to slip into the water.the first time a dolpin swam underneath me i think i swallowed a pint of sea water, i was so shocked dolping were swimming underneath me , jumping over me. It was truly incredible!! we were told in order to keep the dolphins interested in you, you have to be as dolphin like as possible, not swimming with your hands, diving down and swimming in cirles. You also have to make noises and sing, which was quite funny, at times i looked up and it was quite a funny sight seeing all these people making all these sweaky noises and trying to swim like a dolphin.

we jumped in the water about 4 times, probaly spending a total of 50 mins in the water, you have to keep jumping back on the boat to cacth up with the dolphins as they are so fast. I have to say, although it sounds cheesy i did feel in total awe of these animals, truly inspirational!!

Our day at sea had not finished though, we also booked later on that afternoon whale watching!! According to the lonely planet it's one of the best places in the world to whale watch, so we were really excited!! So we took our seats in the middle of the boat, later to discover this was probaly the wosre place to sit as you'll soon understand. The whales that we were searching for, native to Kaikori are called sperm headed whales. They are called this because their heads are filled with 2 1/2 tonnes of seamen as one poor marine biologist found out. Gross!!!!

Anyway i would say that the trip was more like whale chasing, the guides would spot a whale miles away by the mist of water produced by the whales' spout, and then the boat would race to get there before the whale would dive down, as whales can spent up to an hour under water, for every min above water it can spend 5 mins underwater (see i learnt something). so we'd get reasonably close and then we were allowed to go out on deck to take photo's etc being in the middle of the boat we were the furthest from any door and on a few occasions we didn't actually get out in time before the whale dived. I did however get to see 4 whales, which apparently is a really good day, and here are some pics of a sperm headed whale as it's diving!

we also spotted some albatross, birds which apparently have the largest windspan in the world. We also went past a another dolphin pod, not as large as the one that morning, but i managed to get a short video clip of a dolpin sommersaulting which unfortuately i can't put on my website.

The next day we headed off to wellington, with a much nicer ferry ride than on the way over. For some reason the thought of going back to Wellington was quite depressing, we realised it's probaly beacuse this is the place where Hannah left us and we miss her soo much!!! we did however only have to stay one evening before headed back to Taupo (where we skydived) as we wanted to do the tongario crossing that we weren't able to do on the way down because of the weather.

The Tongario Crossing
The tongario crossing is meant to be one of the best one day walks in new zealand and is also home to Mount Ngourhoe A.K.A Mount Doom out of lord of the rings. The crossing is 17km, and you have the added option of climbing mount doom- (which of course we had to do it's mount doom!!). Another early start, up at 5:00am and an hours drive to the start of the track. We were given an information sheet to guide us on what times to leave varoius land marks in order to be in time for the bus back.

So we set off at the ridicously early time of 7:30am in the morning, i was feeling exhaused as for no apparent reason had had 4 hours sleep that night!! Anyway you walk for about an hour on some fairly easy track until you reach the 'devils staircase', now you can imagine why it's called that because it's a complete bugger! In the guide it recommends that if you find this part of the track hard that you shouldn't even consider climbing Mount Doom. Although i did find it quite strenuous we did however do it 10 mins faster than the guide predicts so we figured that we had to do Mount doom.

Well i have to say that's it's probalt the hardest thing i've ever had to do in my life. It took two hours to climb up, and for every foot you gained you slipped down about half a foot on the loose rocks. it seemed to last forever!!!! but eventually we made it, and we were rewarded with the most awesome sight. It was a completely clear day and you could see from coast to coast.

Now it was just the issue of getting down!! In the guide it states that it takes approx 2 hours to climb and can you believe it -15mins to get down. Yer right if you want to roll down the mountain!!!! We basically had to do what i call rock surfing on the way down, which at times was a little hairy. i think we estimated before the start of the trip that we'd fall about 2/3 times - more like 20!! we ended up surfing down on our bums taking as 45 mins to get down. it really hurt!!! We have also re-named the mountain mount 'moon' as when we got to the bottom we realised that our knickers and trousers were full of little rocks, and with no-one around we had to moon the mountain to get them all out!! It was only after we'd walked probaly another hour i spotted that Maria's trousers weren't quite intact, she had tears right across her bum- looked liked something Christina Agurlira would wear.!! he he

Anyway because we took so long getting down, we were actually behind scheduele which meant we were likely to miss the bus. so there i was at the top of the mountain with my mobile phone calling the 'emgergancy number' to say we'd be a little late. The guy however reconed that if we jogged some of the way we'd make it. So after 4 1/2 hours of mainly uphill climbing we then had to run the rest of the way with our back packs, stopping for a couple of minutes at the most at a time. But we made it with 15 mins to spare!! knackering!!!!

The next day very achey and tired we made our way back to Auckland, and with a few days to spare we booked a 3 day trip to the bay of islands, the northern most point of New zealand.