NZ South Island 2025

I captured a few last shots of Akaroa on my morning walk before we departed for Kaikoura. Whale Pots seem to be the collectable on the East Coast   The main street is pretty quiet at 7 am A thoughtful sculpture outside the Post Office As we drove out of town we could see that a small cruise ship had arrived in the harbour. It looked like the Scenic Eclipse. The town could certainly use a bit of an influx of tourist spending. The drive to Kaikoura is expected to take around 4 hours, the first stage winding our way out of the Banks Peninsula will be pretty slow, the we pass through Christchurch and will get open road on the other side. The roads are in excellent condition but much of it is single lane with the occasional overtaking lane. A short burst of Motorway out of Christchurch is the only free running section. Nevertheless, it is a scenic drive, with lovely rolling hills and lots of sheep and cattle in places. We stopped for a late morning tea in a small place called Cheviot wh...

 Having spent a good deal of time in the car yesterday, I missed my morning walk, so I was out at 6.30am this morning to see more of Akaroa. It is still a bit dark at this time and I seemed to be one of the only people up and about. By 7 am more walkers started appearing. There is no wind and the sea is glassy. Reflections from the jetties I continued walking along the waterfront, past all of the restaurants and jetties that the tourist boats leave from, to see how far the road continued. Soon I discovered the Akaroa Yacht Club. Akaroa Yacht Club A quick google search yielded that they only race on Sundays and whilst visitors are welcome to participate, prizes are only awarded to full members of the club. A little further along the road I found the old lighthouse. Originally located at Akaroa Heads, this lighthouse was relocated to this site. Originally built in 1879 the lighthouse remained in service until the 1970's. In 1980 it was cut into 3 sections, transported to this site an...

 Checking out of the Baywatch Motor Lodge this morning I am glad we didn't decide to cook a curry last night as I saw this notice above the cooktop. We were gone by 8.30 am and found a nice cafe on the highway going North, called Robert Harris, which looked like it was a franchise, but nevertheless served a great breakfast and had strong support from the local police force. There was a bit of an embarrassing moment when left the cafe to return to the car. I could not open the car with the key pod, tried removing the emergency key and inserting it, still with no luck. All of a sudden I thought, maybe this isn't our car. Sure enough another silver Prius was parked 3 cars away and it responded well to our key. The drive towards Akaroa is pretty uninteresting until you turn off the highway and head towards the coast turning off at Burnham in our case and travelling through Lincoln. As we progressed onto the Banks Peninsular, the scenery became quite spectacular. Eventually the wate...