Kaikoura, the single nicest town I’ve ever been to, in any country. More beautiful than anywhere I’ve seen in Australia, Canada or America it was almost unbelievably nice. Sort of how I felt when I saw Kiama in Australia but Kaikoura has just raised the bar even higher. It’s a coastal town with some of the deepest blue water I’ve ever seen. The cliffs are amazing, it’s got mountains and thick forest all around, the town itself is so charming it’s impossible not to fall in love with it and the animals love this place. It’s actually one of the most renowned locations in the world for whale watching and swimming with dolphins. Offshore, the sea bed drops away rapidly to the kilometre-deep Kaikoira Canyon, a phenomenon that brings sea mammals in large and varied numbers. Whale watching and swimming with dolphins are big business here, and the presence of expectant tourists has spawned a number of eco-oriented businesses swimming with seals, sea kayaking and hiking. It didn’t take me long to realise it. Of all the places I’ve been, this is the single most beautiful place to live.

As the big activities here are whale watching and swimming with the dolphins, most people come here dead set on one or the other. Jill mentioned the dolphins at some point in the past but I wasn’t too keen. Since we were already here though, it seemed like a better choice than the more passive whale watching. Swimming with the dolphins is such a popular activity here that spots on the boat go very fast. The fact that we decided we wanted to do it only 2 days before we were going to head out just made things worse. They only had availability on the boat leaving at 5:30 in the morning meaning we had to wake up at 4:30 to make it.

It was so worth it. Kaikoura is just as stunning before sunrise as it is after. By the time we got to the Dolphin Encounter building, had our wetsuits and equipment ready and had been briefed, it was around 6:15. We were on the boats and looking for dolphins by 6:30. It was very cool and completely different to swimming with seals. There were a number of things that differentiated this from what I’d done before but one of the things that jumped out straight away was the size of the boat, a fair bit smaller than usual, it was probably just a matter of preference for the tour operator but it made a difference nonetheless. It lent everything a different feel before we even got in the water. It took about half an hour to find some dolphins but as soon as we did, it was on! We found a big pod, it must have been at least a hundred dolphins. They were all swimming around the boat. Apparently, this is a behaviour they’ve learned from close proximity to whales. When a large whale is nearby, dolphins often follow closely behind or swim out in front. This is because of the pressure wave generated by such a large body passing through the water. The wave pulls the dolphins along, it’s a form of play for them. A boat passing through the water will produce a similar pressure wave to that of a whale so dolphins often come along for the ride.

The skipper of the boat sounded a klaxon letting us know the propellers were off and it was safe to enter the water. We put on our masks, snorkels and flippers, quietly slipped into the cold water and swam towards the dolphins. We made ourselves as dolphin like as possible, we had our arms by our sides and were trying to move our legs in as streamlined a manner as possible. The water was a little murky because of rain over the preceding two days but it was there was no mistaking it when the dolphins got close. They were so graceful in the water, so fast. They came very close to us, within a few inches of me for sure. It looked like two of them swimming towards me were going for a headbutt but they just missed me. They must have amazing spatial awareness. We followed them, trying to keep up but there was no hope of ever being able to do it. They looked so relaxed, they were barely moving and made moving through the water look like it was nothing. It was very different from the way seals move underwater. When they’re just chilling they look relaxed, sure, but if they’re trying to move quickly you can definitely tell. The dolphins were just so fast, I’d really like to see what they can do when they’re actually trying to swim fast. No, there was no way we could ever catch them. We did have a few ways of bringing them to us though. Firstly, they’re quite likely to come over and check things out if you dive down into the water, also, because of their playful nature they like it when you swim in circles so might come over to investigate if you do that. The third and most embarrassing thing we did to attract the dolphins was make sounds (like dolphin calls) through our snorkels. All three worked pretty well but we hardly had to use them. The dolphins were already so close and we were regularly coming into close contact with them. They were all around us but most of the time we’d only catch brief glimpses of them before they disappeared again. It would probably only be a few seconds (or less) until you saw another one but they didn’t stay put very long. They were slicing through the water more easily than a hot knife slices through butter. The only way to see them for more than a few seconds at a time was to swim in a tight circle at which point the dolphin would attempt to imitate you and do the same. The only problem with this is that the dolphin will swim in increasingly tighter circles expecting you to keep up, when you can’t (there’s just no way a human could – I got dizzy trying to), the dolphin gets bored and swims off. This was another difference to swimming with the seals. Even though the seals swam around a little bit they were mostly staying put, they didn’t make you work for it like the dolphins did. Also the area the seals were staying in was relatively tiny by comparison. After we got to them we didn’t have to go anywhere else but with the dolphins, we were constantly getting back in to the boat and going after them. During the course of the morning we entered and exited the water 5 times. This was a limit imposed by the local environmental regulatory commission hoping to limit dolphin exposure to humans; it wouldn’t benefit anyone if the behaviours of the dolphins were to change permanently.

The experience was everything we wanted it to be. Jill was the one that really pushed for us to do this but I ended up enjoying it a lot too. When we were about to go back into the water for the second time, we sat on the back of the boat with our legs practically in the water. The klaxon sounded letting us know we could go in, I was so excited that I went straight towards the dolphins and about 10 seconds passed before I realised I didn’t even put my snorkel in! Jill enjoyed the ride back quite a bit less than me though. Yep, she got friendly with one of the buckets on board. The bucket probably wasn’t as happy to see her as she was to see the bucket. Alistair, the only other crew member onboard other than the skipper, was telling us all about the dusky dolphins we were swimming with. Their lives, how they can swim so deep without having the same issues as scuba divers (they hold their breath so don’t have to worry about the gas in their lungs expanding as they return to the surface – there is no air in their lungs when they return to the surface), all sorts of stuff about them. I thought it was interesting that male dolphins don’t even recognise their own offspring. It’s also cool that they can turn off half their brain at a time. They don’t float if they go prone so have to be moving all the time. They still need to sleep and rest their brain though so have evolved to support this unusual ability. When they sleep, half of their brain stays awake to control swimming, respiratory systems etc. as the other half is asleep. After that side of the brain has been sufficiently rested, the dolphin will swap and rest the other side. Whales also need to do this.

It was a great day out. Though overall, the seal tour may have been better value just because we got to spend more time with them. It helped that they were much lazier than the dolphins.

When we were done with the dolphin swim, we headed back to our campsite and got cleaned up. We had something else planned for today too, the Kaikoura Peninsula Walkway. This stunning 3 hour walk took us all the way around Kaikoura’s astoundingly beautiful peninsula. It defies description so I won’t try to express what I saw with words, the pictures speak for themselves anyway. The walkway took us up steep, man-made slopes constructed from concrete, huge swathes of New Zealand farmland (cows and all), and around massive hills, high up on the Kaikoura cliffs. The views we were treated to were among the best I’ve ever seen. It’s difficult to say they were the absolute best, there’s just too much beauty in this world, but they were way up there. Kaikoura is a place that keeps giving and giving. It really is the nicest place I’ve ever seen.