Friday Flashback – Dolphin Watching In Akaroa, New Zealand

December, 2008 – The weather had been unsteady during the week, but when I woke up that morning the weather was incredible, blue skies and sunny – ‘Let’s go NOW!’ I said as I eagerly shook Nathan to wake up – we were off to Akaroa.

20 minutes later the bus tickets were booked and we were on our way (Nathan took a bet that I wouldn’t be able to get ready in that short amount of time, but what he didn’t know about me is that I can be quick when I really want to be ).

Akaroa is a French village, close to Christchurch in New Zealand and they had really kept their french culture. All the street names, shops and people had French names and the French flag was proudly flying above every house.

France tried to make New Zealand a French colony, but came slightly too late – they then tried to make the South Island a french colony, but when they finally arrived they were too late for that as well.

They were only 10 days behind the British, but since they came too late – they were only given the small town of Akaroa to settle in (still under the British rule) and since that day it has kept its French ‘origins’ – Nathan is from New Zealand, and I can’t even imagine if he had come from a French background instead! :p

Dolphin Watching

We took a ferry around Akaroa Harbor, and we saw over 20 Hector dolphins, they are the smallest, rarest dolphin in the world, and usually you can only catch a glimpse of 4-10 of them – if you’re lucky.  I guess we were very lucky to see so many , we also saw one tiny baby dolphin swimming with its mother, it was only a week old!

We managed to catch a glimpse of the world’s smallest penguins, they were so small and looked kind of lost in the big sea, you just want to swim out and hug them. Make sure you watch the video below, and see if you can spot the baby Dolphin!