Monday, February 4, 2008

Excitement is climbing to new heights

Hi,

The last few days have been quite exciting! I have done some very cool activities to round my Southern island trip off.

In Queenstown I signed up for rock climbing. It turned out I was the only one to sign up which was great as I got a whole afternoon's private tuition at a group price! I'm so pleased to have finally got to rock climb outdoors. As I was the only one there I got to do some harder, higher walls. It beats indoor rock climbing for sure and I would love to do some more when I get home.

After Queenstown, I had a brief stop in Christchurch (just a night out there really) and then headed up the East coast to Kiakoura, where I went whale watching and dolphin swimming.

On our whale watch, we saw two big old sperm whales. One breached (jumped out of the water) but i missed to get it on camera. It was a very cool afternoon - even if the weather was a bit crap! We couldn't get too close due to regulations but the Whales are pretty big so you could still see them.



I had a rough night in a hostel as we were staying in a room where someone had been sick the night before and it quite simply stank! I had nightmares and woke up in the middle of the night shouting "get me out" so was obviously disturbed!

The next day made up for the sick room as I swam with dolphins! One of my favorite days so far (in my life not just this trip). Amazing! Incredible! There were maybe 200 -300 of them and we swam right in amoungst them. One bopped me on the nose - I think I just got in it's way.





In the afternoon, another girl (Christine) and I went on a bike ride to the Peninsula, where there was suppose to be a seal colony. Unfortunately the seals were out in the sea enjoying the good weather but it was a lovely bike ride and walk anyway.

Better go anyway as I need some rest before going on a trip down Waitomo caves to see some glowworms.

See you soon,

Jo

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