Free Willy

My alarm goes off but I'm already half awake. It's 4.30am and dark outside, and I've been half conscious for what feels like hours, worried that I'll sleep in. As quietly as possible I get up and scramble my things together, trying not to wake the three girls asleep in the dorm. I'm about ready to leave when one of them rolls over and mumbles a slurry, 'What time is it?'

'Nearly five', I whisper.

'5 in the morning?'

'Yeah, dolphin swimming, remember? Sorry!'

She looks pissed off. I hurriedly leave. I walk down to the dolphin centre and we are all given wetsuits, masks, goggles and flippers, and my particular favourite, a wetsuit mask which makes everyone's faces look like squashed up plums. A lady gives us an enthusiastic welcome and shows us a video about how to behave with the dolphins. She makes some relatively witty remarks but at this time of the morning I stubbornly refuse find anything funny. We are divided into groups and sent out to get a bus down to the boat pick up point. I haphazardly bundle up all my gear and wander outside, where it's getting light already. The centre is on the coast, in the town of Kaikura on the east of New Zealand's South Island. It's pretty much as far east as you can get, and its one of the first places in the world that the sun rises. Well, obviously the sun is continually rising everywhere but it's one of the first points on land that the day starts on our date system in any case.

I'm distracted by something colourful in the corner of my eye. I turn to see what it is and I let out a gasp, nearly dropping all my stuff in amazement. The sky is a burning, brilliant red. It's not just any red, not just any pretty sunrise, it's the deepest blood red and the entire horizon is flooded with it. I've honestly never seen such colour in nature before in my life, and I can't tear my eyes away from it. My hand has already instinctively reached for my camera, and I scrabble about trying to get it out without turning my attention away from the skyline ahead. I have this odd and very childish idea which though totally irrational, still pops up again and again: that colours like these are too modern to be natural, as if in the old days colour as bold as this never existed. Everything in the distant past to me seems as if it should have been a mixture of dull shades - greens, greys, browns, some mustard yellow perhaps - nothing like this vast expanse of technicolour in front of me. I snap a couple of shots but it's a pathetic attempt at capturing the magic of the light. It does it no justice whatsoever, and I am tempted to delete the image as its almost an embarrassment to the power of the sun. We are hurried onto the bus by our guide and I gather myself together and jump on. I'm already completely bowled over.

Within half an hour we're on the boat cruising out over the Pacific. The view back to land is picture perfect as the sunlight spills over the hills and over onto the flat water where it bobs around, so bright you can't look at it. I keep snapping shots, but eventually force myself to put the camera away to stop myself from taking yet another picture of almost exactly the same thing. A killer whale, an Orka, is nearby, so we divert from the dolphin chase to see it. The one whale turns out to be at least 5, a family of them and more, hunting stingray for breakfast. The previous day I had seen sperm whales, which were great to watch but you can only see up to 10% of their bodies from above the water, whereas these orka are a lot smaller and their black and white gleaming bodies slip past the boat again and again, in an impressively sleek display which I will never forget. That said, I've never forgotten seeing a killer whale at Sea World in Orlando, Florida, but somehow this beats it in my list of things to never forget.

We have to tear ourselves away from the whales to find the dolphins, which doesn't take long. They are completely wild, but enjoy the intrigue of having humans around them to play with. The boat is surrounded by dolphins jumping and wheeling and somersaulting in the early morning light. We get in the icy cold water and have to make noises to attract them, and they love it. You can make eye contact with them and they'll swim around you in circles, so long as you keep eye contact and swim in quick little circles yourself. I keep laughing which stuffs up my breathing system, letting water in. I can't believe what's going on around me. There's up to 600 of them playing with and around us, darting about with such speed and agility, without touching a single other body. They are such fine swimmers I feel a little envious.

Afterwards I feel rotten and want to puke. I weakly hang my head over a bucket for the journey back (where we find more orkas, but I'm not in the mood so much any more) and curse my human stomach for being so pathetic. I can't even enjoy the cups of hot chocolate being passed around by our guides.

Once off the boat I'm elated. The beauty of New Zealand doesn't cease to amaze me. I'm left speechless almost every day at some new wonder, and it's almost too perfect to believe. What's most striking is how untouched it is, how unspoiled. If there were a section of Britain with any of the natural wonders there are here, it'd be absolutely chaotic on sunny days, and overrun with shops clustered with tack. It seems it should be the world's best kept secret, and yet it's no secret. I keep having strange moments where I'm not quite sure where I am, and what on earth I'm doing. I'm not in Asia any more, and I think I'm still in shock. It's quite unsettling, and I'm pretty sure by the time I'm used to it I'll have left the continent to enter yet another world.