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Akaroa and the Banks Peninsula

2. Banks Peninsula Driving Tour

After lunch, having done the town and the cruise, we set out to circumnavigate the Banks Peninsula. In our room we had found a nifty Peninsula Pioneers brochure showing a heritage trail route that would create a circuit. As always, we were treated to the fearless ingenuity of the country’s roadway engineers.  No hill is too high, no cliffside too narrow for these guys to wedge in a lane and a half of tarmac. The entire peninsula is formed from a pair of very old volcanic cones, and thus bears a profile similar to a Hawaiian island. Of course, industrious loggers long ago converted most of the landscape to grassy grazing paddocks where you might expect thick forests. The upside is that you get mainly unobstructed ocean views and the opportunity to debate whether the cows are actually stick-pinned to the hillsides or whether it just looks that way. We also pondered whether Akaroa’s French heritage explained the varieties of cattle, sheep and goats that we hadn’t seen before in New Zealand.


Although the map was something less than faithful to reality, we had a grand tour with minimal misadventures. As our drive repeatedly dipped into isolated white sand beaches and then teetered over hawk-patrolled summits we only ended up on one unpaved section less than 1km long. Not many cars passed as we made repeated photo stops and explored a beach here or a nature trail there. We could easily imagine planting ourselves in one of the tiny beachside communities for a few weeks of R&R. Much of New Zealand is sparsely populated, but we felt a particularly distinct sense of separation from civilization out there.

After stopping to shoot sunset over Akaroa, we popped back into the town just in time to replenish supplies and begin cooking. We were tempted by a nice looking restaurant boasting no holiday surcharge, but managed to stick to our austerity regimen.

3. Barry’s Bay Cheese

Rain built up overnight and took all the charm out of the town in the morning. We’d thought we might explore the little museum or the big charity antiques sale, but as the rain bucketed down, we opted instead to just head back into Christchurch, with a brief stop at the Barry’s Bay Cheese factory on the way out through Barry’s Bay. The cheesemakers behind the glass weren’t putting on much of a show, but the tasting proved delicious, and we struggled to narrow down the impressive array of choices to just two selections for lunch. We also ended up with a few gifts of cheese, honey and wine.

Winding back out the road we had arrived on, we felt the urban sprawl of Christchurch crowding us in the blink of an eye. The peninsula feels like the middle of nowhere, but you’re back in the hubbub in no time. Our escape to Akaroa hadn’t exactly taken us away to Europe as we’d expected, but spending a weekend exploring the Banks Peninsula had been a lovely peaceful getaway.

4. Update

In October we got another opportunity to visit Akaroa with family for a couple of nights. This time, we rented a bach in town through holidayhouses.co.nz which turned out to be a nice three bedroom house with lovely deck and spa-tub. This is really the way to see Akaroa. We spent a little more time in town and the charm is growing on us. Even the little museum, which doesn’t quite live up to it’s claim of being better than Te Papa, was worth the $4 for a half hour to view the video and explore artifacts that brought some of the history to life. We also made sure to enjoy a restaurant, Ma Maison, which was well worth it for the excellent location, creative cuisine and great service. Unfortunately we were again outside peak dolphin season on the other end, so rather than try a swim we booked the same cruise. This time, we got an even better guide who added humor and her own Maori twist to the commentary. We saw fewer seals, and only three dolphins, but this time they fished awhile near the boat and so we got to see how adorably cute they are up close.

Resources

• While three companies offer dolphin swims,  friends of ours highly recommended their trip with Dolphin Experience  but we felt we were too late in the season to swim, and they weren’t doing a harbor cruise
• In addition to the Fox II, another sailing cruise run by Sail-At-Akaroa runs twice daily for similar prices to the standard motor cruises.

 

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This article was written on Saturday, December 1st, 2007 and is filed under Destination. For more articles about: Travel (8), New Zealand (10)

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