Still Getting Wet

On my last day in Christchurch I jumped on a bus and took a 4 hour trip to Greymouth on the other side of the country. The slightly illogical reason for doing this was that the last time I'd come to New Zealand I had wanted to ride on the TranzAlpine train as it's supposed to be one of the world's great train journey and I had to get to the other end before I could get on it. This was a bit of a mad and slightly expensive day, but I did get to see some pretty cool scenery, none of which comes out very well through windows of buses or trains!
The next day I headed to Kaikoura which is a big nature place to go. Last time I was here I'd also wanted to swin with dolphins but the weather was really bad so it was cancelled. This time I tried to book up a few days before, only to be told it was full but I could go on the waiting list. I still hadn't heard from them when the bus set off. then we got stuck for 30mins when a truck lost its load ahead of us and they had to clear the road. At 11am I got a phone call saying there was a spot on the 12.30 trip but we were still a fair way from Kaikoura. Anyway luckily our driver (called Bagginz - I've also had Britney, Gollum, Wozza and Fitzy as bus drivers)floored it a bit and I got there right on time. I suited up and jumped on boat for 25mins then we spotted some dolphins so we jumped in. The dolphins swam right underneath at the start, then they swam off so we got in teh boat and found some more. This time they didn't hang around long and I realised that my mask leaked a bit which was annoying. We got to a third group and my making lots of wierd noises we managed to keep their attention for about 10 mins. It was very cool, they'd swim right upto you and then dart away or swim under you. I took some pictures with an underwater camera but I have no idea how they'll turn out as I wasn't really looking through the viewfinder cos they were so quick I just had to press the button and hope.
That night I tried and failed to eat a really large pizza but did get 2 free pints of Kilkenny as it was a draw in the rugby match on tv at half-time (strangely enough no-one believed the bloke who said this at first but it was true)! i still don't really understand but I wasn't complaining.
Today we left Kaikoura and took the ferry back to Wellington and the north island. Will be heading back upto Auckland soon and I'm debating over whether to put bakc my flight and stay a bit longer. Can't really afford it but don't want to leave...