New Zealand - Dolphin Watching At Bay Of Islands

Hello there!

Having completed my earlier travel posts on several interesting countries and regions, including Japan, Maldives, Indonesia, US and the latest one being several countries in Europe, it's time to fly south and share on one of most picturesque countries in the world, and that's New Zealand!

This trip was took place several years back in 2015, and the trip was filled with adventures and many unique activities and experiences.

The trip actually begin with a 19km day hike at Tongariro Alpine Crossing, and I previously shared about it here. The scenery was amazing and here's one of the photos I have taken!

After spending the first 3 days at the lodge outside of the city completing this hike, we returned to the city to recharge and continued our tour the day after. And one of the highlights of the local tour was dolphin watching at the Bay of Islands!

There was the cruise that we boarded! If you know me, I actually have motion sickness and it was kind of a big risk for me to take this cruise because I could easily get seasick, but because it was part of the local tour package (which I already paid for), it would be a little depressing to sit out and wait on the shore for the rest to return. Anyway, I popped the pills and just went on with it. Read on to see what happened! Haha.

And off we go! Took some photos of the surroundings while we were still feeling excited! The waters initially were quite peaceful, but as we would all expect, the waters got more and more choppy as the cruise ventured further out. At this moment I was still feeling ok.

We finally reached the "designated spot" where dolphins might appear. While the chances of the dolphin sightings were decent, there was always a possibility that it might not happen and that's something we had to accept as part of these nature elements. As you could see, there was another small vessel in the vicinity waiting patiently as well.

And we finally saw them! It was quite challenging to take photos because firstly, everyone was trying to position themselves in the best slot to get the best angle! At the same time, the stationary cruise was rocking up and down with the waves and I was trying hard to take photos while trying to balance myself. Also, it was also a test of our reaction time, because once the dolphins came out, we had to press the button quickly before they disappeared into the waters. All in all, it was really a fun and chaotic experience and I managed to snap these few photos.

After watching the dolphins, we moved on to the next site, which was called the "Hole In The Rock".

And that's the one! Based on the itinerary, I think we were supposed to sail through the hole but I remembered the captain mention something about the weather or the tides, so we would just be going close to the structure and taking a uturn back.

This was as close as we could get, by now, we were very much in the choppy waters and I started to get dizzy.. But there was nowhere for me escape and I just had to endure...

At some point, I was holding back my vomit, but fortunately, we finally decided to uturn and the cruise went into less choppy waters. Still, it was quite a relief for me. I rested a while, before I felt better and went into a photo taking mode again.

And then we stopped for our next adventure! At the moment, I was so happy to alight from the cruise and feel the stable ground underneath my feet. Haha.

Looking back, it has been 10 years now. I must say the dolphin watching experience was definitely a once in a lifetime experience for me, and I don't foresee myself doing something similar anytime soon. In spite of all the challenges of motion sickness, and feeling nauseous, I am glad I made this trip and came out feeling alright.

And that's all I have today! Have you been to New Zealand? Let me know in the comments below!

Finally, thanks for reading my post in the community under World Map Pin!