Greymouth to Kaikoura

We left the glaciers and headed to the next biggish town, Greymouth. We wanted to do Arthur's Pass as we'd read it was a nice pass to do by train in particular, but we thought just driving it would be okay too. This also meant that we wouldn't be going back on ourselves and would be seeing different things. Unfortunately it did mean a lot of driving on winding roads on that day, but it was pretty and we stopped a few times to take photos along the way.
In the end we actually ended  up going even further than we'd planned as we thought we might as well have a full on driving day so that we wouldn't have far to go to get to Kaikoura, where we wanted to spend a few days. So late that afternoon we got to Hanmer Springs where we didn't even wander round the town like we usually like to do, as we were both knackered from the drive and instead enjoyed a nice meal and a bottle of wine for my birthday.
The next day we carried on to Kaikoura, which was only a short drive along the coast. And this coastal road was a proper one, not like some where you don't see the sea apart from occasional glimpses. It looked like the spray from the waves was coming on to the road, that's how close we were.
As we got to Kaikoura nice and early, we walked through town, of course taking more beautiful photos, and also booked our dolphin swim for the next day. This is Colin's birthday treat to me and we were both really looking forward to it.
On Saturday morning we got up early for our dolphin trip and on arriving at the office we were told that the water was moderate, but that we should still take motion sickness pills as the swells might make us feel a bit queasy. Next we got suited up for the swimming with a wetsuit, swimming hat, snorkel, mask and fins and once again looked hilarious. When we got to sea the water was definitely not moderate, it was rough! However we both felt alright enough and were excited about seeing the dolphins. On our first dive the dolphins didn't get too close, but they put on a lovely show for us by jumping and doing backflips. The dolphins are totally wild and don't get fed or rewarded in any way for swimming with us, so we were told it's up to us to entice them to get close to us. On land Colin is just about one of the most likable people and it turns out it's no different under da sea. He did absolutely nothing to invite the dolphins, but yet he had loads circling and swimming by him. I on the other hand had to sing and click my fingers to get their attention, but at least this worked and I had them surrounding me too. It was absolutely amazing to see them like that, despite the freezing cold sea water. There were about 150 dolphins in the water and they were swishing past us and doing tricks around us. It was so great! Unfortunately after this Colin and I both felt really ill and rather than joining the rest of our group for 3 more swims, we each sat with a bucket between our legs and with our heads in the bucket. Luckily on these swims they weren't in the water very long and didn't see many more dolphins as they had started moving away quickly, bored of us by this point. It did however mean that we got absolutely no photos as neither of us could face getting up to take any. So all we have are the fantastic memories, which is unfortunate for you guys, but alright for us ;)
We drove back to our campsite and both fell asleep, still shivering, to recover from our morning expedition and in the evening had a really good fish and chips dinner.