Our first look at the country side around Christchurch made us say Wow. It was beautiful. We first went into the local mountains where you take a gondola ride up to the top and walk around the hill looking down at Lyttleton Harbour. The water was a vivid ice turquoise and which ever direction we looked at from the top it was lovely. Then we drove along the coast from Lyttleton towards an upbeat seaside town called Sumner. The beach here was a fine grey basalt with loads of seaweed and other plant life washed up. The other town we went to was New Brighton which in comparison was quite a disappointment.
Now we reach one of many gob smacked days! We took (unbeknownst to us) a rather perilous route around the bay and across country to find we had to travel on a narrow unsealed road for about 14 kms! Very scary with little chance to pass another vehicle. Gordon was great and got us to the other end in one piece. We were heading to a little town called Akaroa which was first colonised by a French whaler and all the roads and many of the shops still have French names and fly the French flag. We went on a fabulous boat trip piloted by a young Scots man called Hamish. You can tell we are getting on as we both commented that he looked too young to pilot the ship!! On the trip we saw very rare Hectors Dolphins which are small and friendly and about 20 of them kept swimming around the boat showing off. Then we saw some white finned blue penguins swimming in the sea followed by some New Zealand fur seals in and out of the water. Most impressive. Then to cap it all on the way back we came across a Royal Albatross (one of the rarest) just sitting in the water having a rest. Even the crew were amazed as you hardly ever see them. This must be one of the great highlights of the trip and when we get home I can bore you all with the videos I took as well!
We set off in our latest car rental to Dunedin which in Old Gaelic means Edinburgh. On the way we stopped off at the Moeraki Boulders which are almost spherical boulders of up to 4m circumference which were formed on the sea bed 60 million years ago as lime salts gradually accumulated around a hard core.
We went on a great train trip from Dunedin Station 38 miles up to Taieri Gorge. The carriages were from the 1920s and it was pulled by a 1960s diesel. Lots of great river scenes, bridges and tunnels. It really was Hobbit Land! Again, we took so many pictures that some on the way up the gorge were repeated on the way down! The station itself was amazing with about 750,000 Royal Doulton Tiles making the floor alone. We had a hot chocolate in the café/bar that had virtually every make of whisky in the world for sale. I don’t know how I resisted.
The spit of land that heads to the sea from Dunedin is called the Otago Peninsula with even more fabulous scenery. Our first stop was “The only castle in New Zealand”!! It was built in the 1860s in a combination of Scottish baronial and Gothic. Very lovely - big enough to be impressive; small enough to be homely. It had quite a sad history with bankruptcy, suicide and near dereliction It had been left empty for years, used as a mental hospital in WWI and a soldiers billet in WWII until it was bought and repaired by the present family in 1967.
From there we went to the Peninsula’s head where on the beach and from the cliff we were able to see penguins and seals swimming in the sea and many on land as well. We were able to get really close to the seals. We next went on an hours trip on an all terrain vehicle to see the penguins and seals on a section of land protected by the owner / farmers to help preserve the local and diminishing wildlife. We went to a fur seal breeding colony where we saw lots of pups - aaahhh. We also saw a 2ft 2 yellow eyed penguin resting on the beach at 600 metres. Again - so many photos, so little time to show you all!!
We have no idea why the last part is underlined either - what a bummer!!
