Banks Peninsula and on

 16/02/2013
  Even Akaroa didn’t completely escape the earthquake of 2 years ago as there is damage to the war memorial, which is now fenced off waiting to be repaired. We saw this as we were exploring the town, a town that seems to be in a 1960’s time warp and very laid back. In a way it is quite touristy but such a beautiful place anywhere else in the world would have been exploited to attract more tourists. Maybe they don’t want that and we wouldn’t blame them. From here there are boat trips around the bay and you can swim with dolphins , but you need to be kitted up with a wetsuit, this ain’t the Coral Sea! There are other things to do but mostly it involves walking, or mountain biking ……. We found a very nice pub with pints at NZ$7, the cheapest beer in 2 years of travelling. Hope this is a sign of things to come!

 17/02/2013
 The Banks Peninsula is such a beautiful place we decided to stay one more night so we could explore the few bays and inlets that are accessible by road. We booked our extra night yesterday when we had glorious sunshine and clear blue skies. Sods law, we wake up to heavy low cloud and drizzle.
 Having looked at our poor selection of maps yesterday we had decided to drive over the mountains to Okains Bay, a distance of just 25K’s or so. The drive is described as “demanding”, over the narrow twisting summit road, and so it was, made more difficult by heavy fog and drizzle. We were glad to get off the mountain and down to sea level. There wasn’t a lot to see at Okains bay but the drive back wasn’t as bad as the cloud had lifted somewhat and we managed some good photos of Akaroa Bay
  Back at Akaroa the place was heaving with visitors from two cruise ships that had anchored in the bay overnight. One ship was full of fat, loud Americans and the other was full of thin, loud Asians! Whether there was a competition between the two as to who could talk the loudest I am not sure but it gave us some earache (and amusement) as we sat with our $7 pints of Speights Ale. We will move south tomorrow in search of the elusive Kiwi traveller. So far on  the two  campsites we have stayed on have been full of Europeans, not many from eastern Europe I might add, and non from Australia.

 18/2/2013

There are two ways out of Akaroa, the boring way and the demanding way. After the disappointment of not seeing much yesterday we took the demanding scenic route as we are back to clear blue skies. Demanding it is and we were beginning to wonder whether yesterdays conditions were the better as then, we couldn’t see the horrendous sheer drop on either side of the very narrow road. Parts of the road are cut along the side of the mountain and many hairpin turns are 100% blind, luckily we didn’t meet anything coming the other way. We stopped several times to take photo’s as every bend gave a different view over the Akaroa Inlet and also from up a depth!

Once we had cleared the mountainous Banks Peninsula we were then out on the flat Canterbury Plain where harvesting of the wheat fields has nearly finished. No problem with stubble burning here but they don’t appear to be governed by ‘nanny’.

Motoring south , we could see to our right, the Southern Alps in the distance and what we assumed to be snow fields but could be glaciers. We will find out when we eventually get round there.

We have pulled in to a van park on the outskirts of Timaru and so far everyone we have spoken to has had a southern hemisphere accent apart from the park owner who spoke fluent Derbyshire. That’s bloody better!

 19/2/2013

As we travel we continue to struggle with internet connections, it really is a nightmare sometimes taking up to an hour from switching the shiny thing on to connection. Last night it took 45 minutes but once we were in we made good use of it and booked 2 tickets for the Super 16s Rugby match between the Highlanders and Chiefs on Friday down in Dunedin. Dunedin is just a couple of hours drive south so we have a couple of days to kill before we need to be there, ( it’s Tuesday I think! ). So we have turned inland to go and have a look at Mt Cook, a must visit destination, we are told. Nowhere is very far here and we could have done the trip in a day but have decided to spread it out over two days as we have time to spare.

 We have also been told to expect some ‘frish wither’, ( that’s Kiwi for cold ) so we spent a couple of hours wandering around the shops in Timaru buying warm clothing. They will be useless to us when we move to Bali so we will post it to the frozen north when we leave New Zealand.

Frish may be on the way but right now it’s pleasantly warm, 26c, and that’s here in the Southern Alps. We are in the rural village of Fairlie which is a ski field centre in the winter, hard to believe at the moment.