Akaroa

Akaroa is a small little town on the Banks Peninsula about 80 kms (or about an hour) south of Christchurch. We made sure to go around Christchurch, rather than go through it, but the whole time in Akaroa we didn't feel anything. 

It was an old French settlement before the English, or now New Zealand. settlers took over. However, there is still some french culture that was carried over. A lot of the streets have French names like "Rue Lavaud" and the town is rather quaint with some cute buildings, cafes, and shops along a nice waterfront harbor.

Our backpackers was a cute pink building located right in the town. It also had free Wifi, which is why we chose it. We we originally placed into a small, and fuller dorm room that required you to walk outside to use both the resrtoom and kitchen, but then were asked to switch to one inside as they needed more space. We gladly obliged and the new one was much more spacious and we were the only ones in there the first night. It also had it's own bathroom. The first night we got into Akaroa we just relaxed in the backpackers next to the fire as we had driven a lot that day.

The next day we took a little walk to the waterfront area as I wanted to grab a pain au chocolate in one of the little cafes. Unfortunately, they didn't hold a candle to the real ones in France, but it was alright. I miss the pain au chocolates from the patisserie right down the street from John's grandmother's flat in Paris. I miss those.

But it was still a very pleasant walk up to the little lighthouse that sits in the harbor. On the way back into town we took a little side trip onto a small path that wound through the woods.

There were several cute restaurants in the town that boast quite good reputations--especially for seafood fare. But as they were the only ones in the slightly remote town, they were rather expensive, so we stuck to the Four Square supermarket (and a very small one at that) for our meals. 

That afternoon we decided to do one of the bigger walks in the town that led you up through the hills that surrounded the village. We chose one called the Happy Hollows trail that led you up through the woods to a farm belonging to the family of one of the earliest New Zealand settlers in the town, called Happy Hollows farm. It was up in the hills and so from the top you got a beautiful view of the valley below. 

It was a short, but sweet stay in Akaroa. It was also our last stop on our grand tour of the South Island. Next (and last stop for the moment) at Lake Tekapo!

Oamaru

The drive to Oamaru wasn't too far, but we had some time to kill as we couldn't check into our backpackers until 3:00 p.m. We first stopped in Moeraki to look at the Moeraki boulders. 

They are huge, spherical boulders along a small stretch of beach in the town of Moeraki. They are created through heat and compression of old Paleocene era mudstone into their spherical shapes and were uncovered though the erosion of the hillside along the beach.

It was a nice, warm day and so we did some walking along the beach and stopped to get pictures of the boulders. 

We got into the town of Oamaru, which was pretty small and so we just popped into the local museum. It was actually pretty good for such a small museum.

We were then able to check into our backpackers called Old Bones, about kms south of Oamaru right near the beach. We learned later that it was called Old Bones because when the owners were doing digging for the foundation of the place they found old moa bones on the property. Moa are an extinct relative of the Kiwi and became extinct about 500 years ago, having been hunted by the Maori. 

The backpackers was incredibly nice and probably one of the nicest we've stayed in. The host was an older woman, but she was extremely informative and friendly. All of the bedrooms were off of the main room that had a big wood burning stove, comfy couches, and a really nice kitchen all in one big area. 

The rooms were really nice, only twin and double rooms (but only $30 per person) and the rooms each had their own central heating. It was really nice. 

We had GrabOne coupons for the Blue Penguin Colony that night in Oamaru. The last wildlife that we really wanted to see. The viewing started at 5:00 and we got there quite early. The place has a no photography policy for the "protection of the penguins" even though they have lights shining on the colony so you can see them in the dark when they come in at dusk. However, you could purchase THEIR photos for $2.00 a pop. I smelled BS, but unfortunately they had 2 staff that were present for the entirety of the viewing so you couldn't sneak in a picture. Lame. 

We did see a lot though. Close to 90 returned to nest that night and they arrived in several big groups over the course of an hour. The place had built tons of nesting boxes for all the penguins that they all used for shelter. It was really cool to watch them come in--they were so small! They all climbed up the rocks in their groups and waited a bit to cool off, before heading all together into the fenced-off nesting area. 

We were lucky and one of the penguins came right up the rocks and right in front of where the viewing podium was (other wise they were a good 30 feet away). So it was cool to see one up close and actually see it's true size. 

There is also a public blue penguin colony in Kaikoura and so if we made a trip back up there hopefully I can get some of my own pictures.

The penguins made a lot of noise when they all started returning to their nests. It was their way of communication while also solving nesting disputes. They were quite loud and kind of sounded like babies. 

We headed back to our super nice hostel for the night and enjoyed a yummy dinner and chatted up one of the other guests in the backpackers--a nice older guy from Dunedin. We ended up discussing some interesting topics like politics, music, and the growing obesity problem in the US. Kinda random, but really nice guy.

Unfortunately we only stayed the one night--I would have loved to stay longer. But the owner of the backpackers did give us great suggestions for places to stop the next morning. We headed a bit more down the road to a place called Totara Lowlands. The people there specialize in growing cherries and hazelnuts. They also have special lowland cattle that are small and very hairy. They have a shop there where they sell all kinds of goodies made from hazelnuts and cherries. Jams, spreads, chutneys, dessert toppings, dips, butters--plus they sell straight up cherries in different liquids (brandy and pinot noir) and hazelnuts as well. However,  the reason we stopped there was for their $5 cherry hazelnut sundae. It was cherries topped with their cherry vanilla dessert topping, layered with vanilla ice cream, and topped with hazelnuts. As it was only 10:30 in the morning when we got there, it was a delicious breakfast!

The other places we stopped was a famous cheese factory right in Oamaru called Whitestone cheese. We went into their cafe where we were treated to a free tasting of three of their cheeses--a nice cheddar, a brie, and a new cheese they they haven't even put up for sale yet that is a goat and sheep milk blend. We also were able to take a peek into their factory to watch them make cheese--though they were just cleaning the facilities that day. We also saw their aging room where they age their famous Windsor Bleu Cheese. 

It was a yummy start to the morning, and it was good to fill our tummies as we made the three hour drive to Akaroa!

Dunedin

The first day we arrived in Dunedin, it was late in the afternoon but the weather was nice. We checked into our hostel, an old Manor House, but we had a nice double room and it heated well. We made our first stop at the steepest residential street in the world called Baldwin Street. It was very steep and I wouldn't envy the people who live along it and have to drive up and down it. I think at it's steepest point the street is at a 19-degree angle. We decided to park at the bottom and walk up the hill--luckily a large chunk of the sidewalk was actually steps, which made it a bit easier. 

The next day we headed off in the afternoon to do a Speight's Brewery tour. Speight's is the other big brewery in the South Island, and a bit older than Monteith's. It was in an old brick building, dating back to the early 1900s (there was a previous building made in the late 1800s, with the brick building built over it). The brewery was one of the few left in the world to do gravity-fed brewing, where all the different processes are on different floors and everything runs downward to the next floor--so you don't have to pump things as much. It was really cool and the building itself was a bit nicer to look at than the Monteith's brewery--though I think I prefer the Monteith's beer. 

However, the brewery still uses large wooden brew tanks, the only one left in the world the guy said, made out of New Zealand Kauri trees. It was really cool and the tour guide was nice--it was only us and an older Aussie couple on the tour--and at the end you got to pour and taste all the beer you wanted for about 30 min. I just had a small taste of their 6 different beers. 

We had bought a Speight's Brewery and Cadbury Factory tour combo and rushed over to the Cadbury Factory to try and make the last tour of the day--but we just missed it by about 10 minutes, so we made a booking for one first thing the next morning at 9 a.m. 

So it was up early the next day to visit the only Cadbury chocolate factory in NZ--but we got lots of free chocolate out of it! Our tour guide was, oddly enough, another American from New Hampshire. She was in NZ on a working holiday with her husband and they decided to settle in Dunedin. She was really nice and it was only John and I on the tour so it felt like a private deal. It was a good time and we loved all the free chocolate! We also got to see a chocolate waterfall. They have two old storage silos and in one they keep chocolate crumb and in the other they turned it into a tourist thing with a chocolate waterfall falling from the top into a big funnel. It was cool. We left with a nice stash of Cadbury chocolate.

That afternoon, after lunch, we headed out to the Otago Peninsula. Our first stop was the only castle in New Zealand, built by an guy named William Larnach. He was a big businessman who built the place for his wife, who was descended from French nobility. Apparently she wasn't very impressed with the place. He married twice more, and in the late 1800s shot himself with a  pistol in an empty parliament room as he was going bankrupt and his third young wife was suspected of having an affair with his son. The place went into a bit of disrepair before another family bought it several years ago and fixed it back up.

Now, they do tours and hold a lot of events like weddings and there is also accommodation there.

It's not really a true castle, it just looks a bit castle-like from the outside. On the inside, it just looks like a nice victorian house. You couldn't take pictures on the inside, but you could once you got to the tower.

 Most of the rooms were just your typical, nice Victorian room, but there was one called "Constance's Boudoir" that was quite interesting. Apparently it was the "boudoir" of the guy's third wife and so the room still contained her wedding dress and other clothing items and nick-nacks. The room had all the curtain's shut and a big black curtain hung over the doorway--presumably to keep the light and warmth out to preserve the old clothing. However, strung up on the ceiling was a mannequin of a girl with a bluish tinge all over so it looked like a dead person and she was wearing Victorian pajamas. I guess they wanted to make it look like a ghost and I must admit it was rather creepy. Didn't really fit with the ambiance of the rest of the house. 

The gardens of the house were also nice, though. They had different sections with different-looking gardens. They also had a bit of an Alice in Wonderland theme as they had a statue of Alice with the flamingo croquet mallet, stone busts of the Queen and King of Hearts, and a hidden Cheshire Cat that was actually on the branch of the big tree in the front lawn. 

After leaving the Castle, we headed out to a place called Sandfly point where we had read that you could spot sea lions on the beach. You had to walk down a bunch of sand dunes to get there, which was very strenuous in the walk back up. However, we did see several sea lions playing on the beach. We also saw a mother and pups, as well as some big dudes all playing on the beach. We kept our distance as sea lions can be quite aggressive, but I had my telephoto lens, so I was able to get some good pictures. 

Our next stop was at the very tip of the peninsula, where we read you could spot blue penguins returning at dusk. We waited for a bit, but it just got too cold to stand on the beach, so we headed back into town. However, we were right next to the Albatross Center where they have the only mainland Albatross colony in New Zealand. We didn't actually visit the colony cause you had to pay, but we saw an Albatross fly off into the sunset as we were leaving the car park. We also caught a pretty sunset right over the cliff.

The next morning we had some time to waste before we were to check in at our backpackers in the town of Oamaru up the coast. So we headed to a small beach walk just outside of town called Tunnel Beach. We encountered an obliterated car in the parking lot, complete demolished by fire. There was a cop car sitting right next to it--not sure what happened there. 

But we made our way down the rather slippery and muddy path to the beach. Right at the end there was a tunnel that led down through the rock onto the beach. It was a really nice beach with cool rock formations.

It was a nice visit until John wanted his picture on one of the rocks as the tide came in. As I was taking the picture, they tide came up even further and as I was in a little corner I had nowhere to go and my shoes and bottom of my pants got soaked. Not a happy camper. 

I stuck my shoes on the back of the car to dry in the sunlight as we made our way up to Oamaru.