I am booked to go snorkelling with the dolphins and this is a 5am early start, it’s is a 25 min walk from where we are staying, in the dark to the dolphin centre. James is picking us up at 9.30 am to start our long full day travel to Abel Tasman. We receive our briefing, wetsuits, hoods, snorkelling gear & flippers and are transferred to the boat by bus, a short hop. There is a choice to swim with or watch “The Dusky Dolphins” on this tour. It says on the briefing that you need to have a good level of water confidence, and this is really just to do with launching yourself off the back of the boat each time the horn is sounded, there is little to no chance of sinking in these wetsuits, they are so bouyant. The snorkels are of an excellent quality and I managed not to choke for the duration of this experience which was a big win for me. Broadly, the interaction with the Dolphin’s is dependant on what mood they are in and we are asked not to try to touch them and to sing to them, swim in circles with them if we get the opportunity, plus dolphins like to eye ball you! I cannot begin to tell you how much I would love to be upload Fio’s go-pro video with sound as it is utterly hilarious, strangled cat/howling wolf comes to mind lol, HOWEVER, the dolphins clearly liked it, in fact, one “young couple” had some “jiggie” time listening to her to her dulcet tones as they past her! We had around 3-3.5 hours out on the water, in and out of the boat and it was such a lovely experience. The sea was pretty calm, however, despite taking ginger a few people felt a bit seasick, luckily, I am not one of them. I did loose part of one of my fillings unfortunately, luckily I am not in pain or that would have been a polava out here!

James picks us up at 9.30 am and off we go again!

So, ten points for who can guess what we are doing for lunch today and why I am smiling? I will give you some clues avid readers……we travel through the Marlborough region! The sea water is pink here and in this area is associated with Lake Grassmere Saltworks. The pink to purple hue of the salt water ponds is a natural occurrence caused by microscopic green algae that change to a pinkish/red pigment in high salt concentrations, this process is intensified in the summer months.

This area is not suitable for dairy cows for those that are interested, I will let you work out the why, I thought it was pretty obvious! It has the maximum sunlight exposure in NZ. We are booked at Whitehaven Winery for lunch – who got it right? I don’t feel hungry as I had eaten something at our first stop this morning, however, I am thirsty and I most definitely will not be spitting!

The weather has been so much colder and wetter since we arrived in the South Island and I have got it all wrong today, bear in mind the time and temperature of our 5am start, by lunchtime I am cooking, and so some shopping was required at Whitehaven, so much so, I looked like one of the staff lol ;-).

There were 4 choices of wine tasting, Classic, Aromatic & Premium where you get 4 tasters and the 4th, Bubbles where there was one. I chose the Classic, they were very good at changing the first one from Sauvignon Blanc (which anyone that knows me well knows I don’t like at all) to a 2023 Riesling which was delicious, followed by a 2023 Pinot Gris, a 2024 Pinot Noir Rose & finally, a 2023 Pinot Noir, the wines here were truly lovely and they export to most places in the world bar NI, they do export to O’Brien’s in the South which, if you were in one, I would recommend these Whitehaven wines. The food at this winery look and was excellent by all reports also. Rhonda and Bob did the Premium option and said it was superb. Again, 4 choices; 1. 2023 “Greg” Single Vineyard Sauvignon Blanc, 2. 2023 “Block 11” Barrel aged Sauvignon Blanc, 3. 2023 “Greg” Single Vineyard Chadonnay & finally, 4. “Greg” Single Vineyard Pinot Noir. The “Greg” range is named in honour of Whitehaven’s late co-founder Greg White (1952-2007).

Onwards to Abel Tasman, James has told us to all be on the look out for a white heron they are extremely rare and he has only ever seen 5 in his life and round the corner we came and I said, is that one? I think he thought I was joking but there it was and so we came to a very quick halt and all got out, his excitement was infectious. We meet a couple with huge cameras, the man had been trying to see one of these for 25 years and was booked on a white heron sanctity tour tomorrow lol and there he/she was. It is there only nesting place in NZ. We did feel hugely lucky to have seen one given James’s reaction.

When we get there we are in a large campsite near the sea, it has been a glorious day which we have missed completely as have been on the bus all day broadly. It is around 6pm when we arrive, shower, toilet and kitchen facilities are all outside and we are in small huts, very small huts, well this should be interesting in the middle of the night!