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Dolphins!!! ... A boat trip from Russell

 

They were wondrous. Came right up to the side of the boat - you could see their blowholes and hear their lovely snorting noises. And yes, they even did that jumping into the air and arching thing. My first holiday Wow! moment.

 

On the dolphin boat trip, we sailed through this hole in the rock...

 

 

Waitangi Day, Wednesday 6th of February

Today was the Waitangi Festival. Waitangi's the place where the Brits and the Maori tribes signed a 'Peace' treaty...which didn't last very long after the Brits reneged on various things, but that's another story. So it's commemorated every year and all NZ gets a day off. We just happen to be staying across the bay from Waitangi, so we headed off on a ferry to watch fearless little boys jumping off bridges into the sea;

strong unsilent types pulling canoes out of the water;

lovely singing and dancing,

(Video quality reduced to keep data costs down!)

including that stompy dance that the Kiwi rugby players do when they want to put the wind up the opposition.

Speaking of putting the wind up, we returned to the town to hear sirens and loudspeakers announcing a tsunami warning- you might have heard there was an earthquake near the Solomon Islands.....high tide was in an hour and I was all for marching up to the highest point, clutching a survival bag, but 'twas unnecessary (well there's 10 mins left of high tide still, but the bay looks pretty quiet). And, hopefully, so it shall remain!! Just relieved I never went to see that tsunami film that's doing the rounds...

(Words by K.)

 

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