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| What a beauty! |
After saying goodbye to our friends in Motueka, we made our way to the Banks Peninsula- a peninsula that was formed by a volcanic eruption... the whole thing... check it out on Google maps - it's very cool.
It's about a 90 minute trek east of Christchurch. It has truly breath-taking views, combining green mountains and many bays of sheltered turquoise ocean water.
Akaroa is the main town on the peninsula and is New Zealand's most 'French' town. It was originally settled by French settlers and retains some of that heritage. The town has french street names and you see the odd french word on restaurant signs... but in truth, it's not especially French, in our opinion.
Since the Christchurch earthquake in 2011, Akaroa has become a major hub for cruise ships but on non-cruise-ship-days, it is a quiet town of ~700 people with a supermarket, restaurants and souvenir shops. Most of the cruise shippers scatter to Christchurch and elsewhere so not much of a crowd!
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| Coming into the bays from Christchurch |
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| Kilometres of hilly green farms |
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| Turquoise ocean waters |
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| Sharp drop-offs road-side |
After a stunning drive, we arrived to a piece of paradise that we were lucky enough to call home for 2 weeks. We stayed 8 km from Akaroa in a quiet enclave of beautiful homes, all boasting incredible views.
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| Lots of hairpin turns |
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| We saw more sheep than people |
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| The view from our 'home away from home' |
This longer stay was planned to give us all a break from the busyness of traveling and moving every 2-3 days. What a great stop it turned out to be.
We got caught up on school work.
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| Some independent work time on projects |
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| Phys Ed class at the local community centre |
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| Phys Ed class on a river bank |
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| Recess at Christchurch's largest playground |
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| Science class at the beach- these ducklings kept following us around |
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| Art class at the beach |
The kids learned new games.
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| Family pool tournament |
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| Hours of New Zealand Monopoly- where you collect 2 million for passing go! |
We explored different bays, rivers and beaches. We stumbled onto so many incredible intact sea shells - from giant snails to Paua to massive oysters and Nautilus shells... it was amazing!
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| Our local beach- a short 15-minute walk |
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| Beautiful Okains Bay Beach |
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| Another local beach |
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| A resident seal at Le Bons Bay Beach |
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| Beautiful volcanic sand - checkout this water colour - surreal! |
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| Onawe Peninsula |
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| Another picture of Okains Bay Beach |
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| Lots of different shells... not many photos of them though... these plain ones made the blog - who knew? |
On the Banks Peninsula, we didn't feel like we were 'traveling', we just 'lived. We maintained a real semblance of routine in this little paradise... nice to get back to a few tried-and-true healthy habits, and "fuel-up" for ongoing travel.
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| Trying to remember it is almost Christmas despite the beachy sunshine |
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| Yum- no cookie cutters so Chelsea cut these out with a knife |
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| Mike missed his guitar- lots of music over the past 2 weeks |
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| Canuck kids'll swim anywhere, anytime! |
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| Mike and I escaped for a few runs...the mountains were killer! |
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| Summit road - a real nail-biter! |
New Zealand is a special place but the Banks Peninsula, specifically our little nook, will forever hold a place in our hearts.
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