Tresori Motor Lodge Akaroa

... other things but this is a city, stuff here is grey, graffitied (not the interesting rude back of toliet door stuff) and also my eyes are pulled back by a sudden crash. She just fell over! It the cleats (little clippie bicycle shoes), mostly people think they’d get you straight away when you stop but there sneaky and you remember to take one foot out correctly and while your congratulating yourself on a job well done the other pulls ...

... beautiful and empty, the water ice blue,
green hilly peninsulas reaching out on both sides. We walked on a trail
under a sea cliff that was barely a trail at all, so much of it had
already washed into the sea. I heard a rock hit the ground at my side
and turned around, surprised that Max would throw a rock at me. A few
more rock-plonks sounded around us and we looked up to see a sheep
leaning over the cliff, chewing noisilly ...

... places that you could enjoy no matter what the weather. Seriously, the campervan was heaps of fun and we thoroughly enjoyed the evenings with the vans circled up so we could enjoy pleasant "cocktail parties", which is a signature of the way we travel with friends. I wasn't all that taken with the bedding bit. I do suffer from tight spaces anxiety a little and I'm not a small person, so sleeping over a week in a camper was pushing the friendship. If I did it again, I'd probably spend ...

... heat, and only a few degrees cooler than the olga's 'shut down' temperature, when it's just too hot for anyone to walk around the site! so the olgas 'valley of the winds' walk takes you around the base of the olgas, which are a massive collection of gigantic rocky peaks, rising out of the ground, creating green valleys and red and orange gorges and slopes amidst them, to walk between and clamber over and get totally lost in! well, you'd like to, but there seems to ...

... fine but it was starting to get in his eyes even when dry. I also had to buy a new journal since I've filled up the original one! We then picked up supplies for tea tonight. Aaron and I are making David and Elizabeth burritos tonight. Tomorrow we drop off the car and then take the bus to Picton. I'm excited because there is a sheep dog trial going on up there so I'll get to watch New Zealand dogs at work! Then the day after we'll be on the North Island and the last leg of our journey! Cheers!

... Also knowing where the road was straight and could be cruised at good speed and where it was a slow winding hilly road worthy of California highway one, we had a much better idea of how long it would take and how far we were from Akaroa at every stage. So we made it with time to spare and got on our boat.             We settled in as the boat left the dock. The boat started by going around to the Onawe peninsula, the last remnant of a ...

... 5km to go and about half an hour to make it. Fine if I was fresh, but I was very far from fresh. Then the chain came off the bike! At this point I luckily managed to flag down Shaun and he was kind enough to give me a lift for the final strip - whew! So, onto Akaroa, a pretty town with Hector's dolphins, the worlds smallest. Which sounds great until you realise that the worlds smallest dolphin means that there isn't as much to see as there would be with a ...

Journal pour mardi le 10 fevrier L'activite de la journee etait la nage avec les dauphins, de tout petits dauphins, en fait les plus petits au monde, environ 4 pieds de long. Ont les retrouvent seulement dans la region et il en reste environ 7000, ils sont donc proteges. Mais a 08h00 le matin, il fait encore froid et je ne peux pas dire que j'ai bien envie de me tremper dans de l'eau a 15 degres. Et je suis un peu ...

... the peninsula overlooking the sea. It was really beautiful. On our way back, we stopped for a beer at a pub and then went back to the hostel to make supper. The hostel was really busy....lots of people there, so cooking was a bit tricky. The next day we travelled to Christchurch, and we are now staying at a B&B that is also a massage clinic and spa.....I had nothing to do with the selection:) It's really lovely. For only $90/night NZ dollars, we get our own cottage in her ...

... saw anyone in the streets, despite it being a beautiful day. I'm guessing it was because of the New Year's holiday. I sat in a bar for dinner and talked with the bartenders and a few locals for a while. I learned that New Zealanders love the WWE (one guy could rattle off all of the past champions from the 80's) and that one of my bartenders was 16 years old and also a high school dropout. Two of the guys I talked to, one 40ish and another in ...