Akaroa

Today we took a trip over to Akaroa which is about an hour and a half from Christchurch. Unfortunately it was a fairly cloudy, cool day (14 degrees). But the scenery was lovely. Rolling hills, lots of sheep and cattle farms. The last 10kms.  into Akaroa was a really twisty, winding road but the view on the descent into the village made it worth it. We had a great lunch in a restaurant that was an old converted house. We sat outside on the verandah under cover to eat because by that time it had started to rain. It was a gentle rain and it had warmed up to about 18 degrees. Also, the gardens were beautiful. We were surrounded by trees and every colour of rose that you could think of. It was like an English country garden except that there were also some tropicals. The village is right on the ocean and is full of neat shops and eateries. A tourist trap of course. It's going to take Ian a while to get over paying $1.69 for a garlic bulb.

So we bought groceries to make a stir-fry for dinner tonight. Getting tired of restaurant food. We plan on making an early night of it as we would like to be on the road by 8:00 tomorrow morning. The plan is to head straight down to Gore ( I know --nobody has heard of it) which is almost at the bottom of the south island. Everyone has advised us to skip it because there is nothing there, but, it is the place that my mother's relatives emmigrated to and Ian wants to see it. We'll find out if everyone is right. Then on to Queenstown  and then work our way back up to Picton to take the ferry over to Wellington on the 26th. Time is going quickly-- hard to believe we only have just over two weeks left.

So, Cheers until next time!