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.