Day 3: Active New Zealand Trip Begins

We meet at 10AM so it was a leisurely start to the day. There are 9 guests on the trip with two guides. I will spend the next two weeks with theses 10 people so I hope it is good! Kat is are leader. At the age of 26 she is extremely capable of moving us along and informing us of NZ. Dan is our co-guide and the age of 23 he is good at keeping us fed as well as providing insights to NZ. We will mostly travel via bus - small bus around NZ. At first this is a bit difficult for me as most of my past big vacations were done via bike with much more freedom to stop when we want to take photo's for visit something. It is a trade off for covering more ground.

The other 8 guest are as follows:
Ashley from SF in her thirties
Emily & Dennis from WI in their 50's and 60's
Morris & Joyce from WI in their 60's and 70's
Linley from Australia in her late 40's
Karen from N. England in her 50's
Terry from Oxford England in his 60's (he was the only one on the trip that went at my pace)

So as you can see it was a group that was a bit on the older side. All were very nice and we didn't have one bad apple in the group which was great.

The first day we drove up the East coast north of Christchurch to Kaikoura with a stop over on a beach some where for lunch. When we arrived in Kaikoura it was strait to swimming with the dolphins - so we were told. I wasn't too keen as I knew the water was quite chilly and when we were putting on 7mm wet suits I didn't think this was for me. I gave away my wet suit on the last dive trip as if it was going to be that cold I wouldn't be going as it would not be fun for me. And here I was again. I have swam with dolphin's before in nice 85 degree water so I didn't think this was going to be necessary. On our way to the beach with the guide I asked about what other life we would see other then dolphins - he said oh there will be no dolphins mostly kelp and other weeds - that was it I wouldn't be going. I did give it a try but the water was so cold. So I hung back at the beach. I lost out on eating the inside if a sea urchin - ever heard of that? So I was happy and didn't feel like I missed out on a thing.

That night we stayed at a B&B with a parrot that drank a beer out of a beer can all by it's self. The owners catered dinner - so much food and it is ok.