Goodbye is so hard to do....

Our final week with Mum and Laura... =( Its been brilliant spending time with them and sharing experiences like swimming with dolphins and we were determined to make the most of our last few days with them.

Sunday - Today's aim was to go kayaking in the Akaroa harbour, hopefully to find Hector's Dolphins again =) It was a lovely morning, quite a bit of cloud, pocketed with bright blue sky and warm sunshine.

Once we sorted the kayaks and the rest of our gear out the guys at the rental shop took us down to the beach and helped launch us. Laura and Mum were in one kayak, Lee and Rachael in the other. Despite the sunshine there was a cool wind blowing down the harbour, but we were all prepared, dressed warmly and with plenty of waterproof clothing.

We crossed the emerald green water of French Bay (in front of Akaroa itself) and then made our way down the East coast of the harbour itself, heading with the wind, coasting with the rippling waves it created behind us. The kayaks gave us a new and unusual perspective of this volcanic harbour, so low to the water the steep sides towered above us even more. Of course we were looking for dolphins as we went but we also admired the rest of the scenery and wildlife as we passed, shags, gulls and oystercatchers milling around on the rocky shore, penguins popping up amongst the waves and terns feeding in the waters a short distance away.

The dolphins were quite far away today, we paddled almost to the mouth of the harbour before we saw the dolphin watching boats stopped up ahead and knew the dolphins were there. We felt a little disheartened, unsure whether we would make it that far out before we had to turn back and head for Akaroa once more.
Suddenly something amongst the waves catches Rachael's eye, they paddle over and then we both saw those distinctive, quirky round dorsal fins of Hector's Dolphins. Calling to Mum and Laura we headed over in their direction hoping to get just a little closer. Suddenly, right next to the kayak the dolphins surfaced! We whooped in delight, they were so close! The dolphins hung around us for about 10 minutes, at one point there was at least 10 dolphins surfacing and swimming all around our kayaks, some even began bow riding! We pushed on hard watching them just in front of us under the water! A couple of dolphins porpoised clear of the water just to our right, it was pretty awesome!

All too soon they disappeared into the waves and it was time for us to start our journey back, heading into the wind and waves it would take us much longer to return. We hugged the coastline trying to keep out of the wind and spray as much as possible. We paddled close to rocks that were covered in barnacles, chitons, limpets, oysters and some of the largest mussels we have ever seen! We went through beds of kelp, watching the browns appear in a patchwork amongst the green water.

It was tough going our arms and shoulders ached and we were covered in salt as the sun quickly dried off any water that sprayed us. Still we ploughed on, stopping for short breaks to rest our muscles and take in a bit of the scenery.

We rounded the headland into French Bay to find it heaving with yachts making the most of the wind and sunny weather, we made our way across to the beach, dodging large sail boats as they tacked back and forth. 4 hours after we had started we skimmed back up the beach and Rachael got out to haul both kayaks onto the beach. We handed the gear back and then went to change from our dripping clothes and had a hot cup of tea.

The rest of the day we spent relaxing, pooped from our kayaking adventure.

Monday - Woke to an absolutely gorgeous, hot morning, for our final day in Akaroa and after a leisurely breakfast Rachael, Lee and Laura headed down to the main wharf to do some fishing and enjoy the beautiful day.

It started off quite quiet but as the tide turned and began to come in we started to feel bites on the end of our line. Lee and Rachael ended up having quite a successful afternoon, both catching numerous small Wrasse and Herring, we kept the herring to eat and let the wrasse go. Unfortunately Laura didn't have as much luck, not catching anything all afternoon =) but still we all enjoyed just relaxing in the sunshine. After a couple of hours our bait had all gone and we were all feeling rather rosy from sitting in the sun, so we headed up the hill to show mum our catch.

After a cooling dip in the pool we ate the fillets of herring for starters, polished off the rest of our dinner and rushed back down the hill in order to join an evening penguin watch.

We jumped into the four wheel drive mini van and then headed up an extremely steep, twisting road to the very lip of the volcanic crater. From here we had magnificent views of Akaroa Harbour and the rest of the Banks Peninsula in the evening light.,
As we descended down the other side, Flea Bay or Pohatu came into view, this is where the White-flippered Penguins nest and sleep for the night. A beautiful, rugged bay with bluish grey water and pine trees topping grassy, steep sides. The penguins nest on both sides of the bay, right up to the tree line and although most of the chicks have fledged by now, adults are returning to the burrows to moult.

We drove to the very bottom of the bay and then walked along the steep sides following a narrow track, passing bushes and gullies, every now and then we would come across a nest box. Carefully our guide lifted the lids to reveal some White-flippered Penguins! We mostly found adults in various stages of the moult, looking a little bedraggled but we also saw two late chicks, with their bright blue plumage!

As we walked a little further our guide pointed our three Yellow-eyed Penguins up on the bank, one of rarest penguins whose numbers have dramatically been reduced by loss of habitat in which they breed.

Its amazing to think White-flippered Penguins scramble up these steep slopes, over rocks, through grass and round prickly bushes and deep gullies! Scanning the bay we saw groups of penguins sitting on the water, and soon came across a cluster resting on the rocks before making their way to their burrows. As we watched these penguins on the rocks something out in the bay caught Rachael's eye, Hectors Dolphins! About 15 of them surfacing amongst the greyish green wavelets of the bay! It was such a surprise to seen them, we were on a penguin watching trip! We watched the dolphins and penguins for a few moments until it started to get darker and so we headed back to the van at the end of the bay.

Before we left our guide showed us two final penguins that she was hand feeding, as she gave them their final feed of the day she explained what had happened to them. The first had been attacked by a stoat and the other, a chick, had been struck by a boat. The stoat victim should soon be able to be released back into the wild, but the chick will need to heal much more before its released.

Our guide then took us back along those winding roads to Akaroa.

Tuesday - Today we left Akaroa, a beautiful place with stunning wildlife.

It was a hot, sunny day as we drove out of Akaroa and up, over the peninsula. Soon we had arrived on the other side of the peninsular and stopped at a small, beach village called Birdlings Flat. Here we wondered along the shingle beach, being buffeted by a strong breeze that whipped up white caps on a startlingly blue ocean. We stopped to watch a colony of White-fronted Terns, the adults hovering over the water, dipping down to catch a fish and then swoop in over the colony dropping down next to a calling chick to feed it. We also spotted an albino shag being mobbed by terns as it fed just past the surf, eventually having enough it took off and flew down the coast.

We then visited a Gemstone and Fossil Museum, much to Mum's delight! The rocks and stones were all really interesting, lots of different shades and colours and the fossils were really cool. Mum was in her element!

Once our curiosity was satisfied we drove along the Kaitorete spit next to Birdlings Flat, that splits Lake Ellesmere from the ocean. A flat expanse of yellow grass and small white flowers, rippling in the strong wind, dotted with tufts of green, prickly bushes. Spur-winged Plovers hid amongst the long grass and Australasian Harriers glided inches from the grass heads.

We turned and parked near the shingle beach, with gravelly dunes covered in tufty patches of brush. After another walk on the blustery beach, we had to start thinking about finding a campsite for the night, that's when we decided, having seen no signs prohibiting it, to free camp on the spit!

After dinner, we struggled against the ferocious wind to set our tent up and then watched the sky change colour with the setting sun. When it was finally pitch dark the beauty of our chosen campsite really came out. With no lights to be seen the velvet black sky was filled with millions of twinkling stars millions, we saw the milky way, the edge of our galaxy, and even saw another galaxy on Orions sword, best was a comet McNaught, a fuzzy splodge with a fuzzy trail of greenish light.

With no one else around and only the sound of the wind howling and the waves crashing onto the beach for company this had to be our wildest and best campsite yet.

Wednesday - We awoke to a tranquil, calm morning with beautiful, diffuse light touching the grass heads and flowers, the pale blue ocean was calm, washing up onto the pebbly beach.

After a leisurely breakfast we packed up and headed back to Birdlings Flat for one last walk on the beach and so Laura could take a few more photographs of the White-fronted Terns.

Once gain we watched the adults feeding their chicks, but it was very hot lying on the shingle in the heat of the sun and after a while we headed back to the shelter of the van, not before Laura got an absolutely fabulous shot of an adult feeding a young tern! Jammy!

We ate lunch on the shores of Lake Forsythe, watching the Black Swans and Paradise Shelducks and then continued our journey back to Christchurch.

Once we got to Christchurch we ended up driving around for a couple of hours trying to find somewhere to refill the gas canister and get it fixed as we had a suspected it had a leak, and a campsite near to the airport. Eventually we were all settled in for the evening.

Thursday - The day we had all not been looking forward to, we were flying back to Auckland this lunchtime and leaving Mum and Laura to continue their trip around the South Island. We were all really looking forward to carrying on with our adventures, Mum and Laura were heading to the Fiordlands and we were going to be volunteering on Tiri Tiri Matangi, but we were also all sad to be leaving each other. We'd had a brilliant month together.

The morning flew by and all too soon we were saying good bye, getting on the plane and flying back over the island to Auckland.

Back at Alan and Cath's house we spent the next few days getting ready for our stay on Tiri Tiri Matangi, an island that is a nature reserve off Auckland, here they have eradicated pests such as rodents, re-planted native trees and introduced native bird species.