One last town to see….

April 15, 2017 · by Dano · in New Zealand

Ingrid, the lady who we rented a home from in Nelson, said we should try to visit Akaroa once we reach Christchurch. It’s only about 1.5hrs (75km) so not a long drive and it is a pretty, coastal town with French and British heritage. Sounded good to us.

We plugged in the coordinates so Carmen the Garmin wouldn’t get confused, fired up the Kiwimobile and headed out towards the coast. As with most NZ roads, it wasn’t long before we were on a mountain side, curving our way around what had to be 2,000’ drop offs! Of course, in some places there were guard rails, others, nothing more than barbed-wire. I guess the barbed-wire is to show where someone went off, definitely not to stop you from going over!

Found an interesting concept for apartments, silos! And to think, as a kid growing up in Illinois, I thought these were only for corn.

Beautiful drive, and the vistas were amazing. Once we made it over the summit, we could see the bay where Akaroa is located, very picturesque. Akaroa is a Maori name meaning, “long harbor” located in the Banks Peninsula. (Actually the whole harbor is part of an extinct volcano caldera)

Town of Akaroa in back

Lots of shops, cafes, boat hires and if you’re interested, swimming with the dolphins. While we were there it was mostly quiet with only a few tourists, but when a cruise ship comes in, quite a different story. That’s when this place comes alive! Somehow, I can’t imagine 1,000 people descending on this little town for 5-6 hours.