I love a good coupon, so it’s no surprise that I spend a lot of time on Auckland’s version of Groupon–GrabOne. They’ve got all kinds of crazy touristy things listed on the cheap! One such deal that I couldn’t resist was a whale watching tour.
The harbours and gulfs of NZ are full of wildlife, most notably dolphins and killer whales! And Auckland Whale and Dolphin Safari does daily cruises into the Hauraki Gulf to try and spot whales. My flatmate, another friend, and I signed up for an afternoon cruise one weekend with high hopes of spotting some Orcas! The cool thing about this company (besides the fact that it leaves directly from the Viaduct in the CBD) is that they guarantee sightings of at least enough sealife to justify the cost of the ticket. My flatmate’s friend had been on a cruise the previous weekend with her parents and hadn’t seen anything, so she joined us for free!
The cruise out of Auckland was stunning, and we were lucky to have a gorgeous day with gorgeous weather. We sailed for about an hour and a half, just enjoying the scenery and the sunshine.
We started to see some action once we were away from the ferry channel and the other boat traffic. We saw TONS of dolphins throughout the 5 hour cruise–they were so playful, swimming alongside the boat and jumping in the air. Everyone on the cruise was smiling from ear to ear! At one point we even saw some penguins swimming through the water!
Unfortunately we weren’t lucky enough to see any Orca on this trip–it was pretty late in the season. But the four of us had an amazing time on the water watching all the dolphins and birds and penguins!