Akaroa

Hope everyone had a great weekend because we sure did! This Saturday, we booked a trip out to Akaroa which is a small town on the Banks Peninsula just slightly southeast of Christchurch. The day started out pretty cloudy, but our scenic tour to get there still offered us some great views of the town.

Once we arrived, we had to hustle to grab a quick lunch before heading out on a wildlife harbour cruise. We fought off the relentless pigeons to finish our sandwiches and then headed over to the wharf. We had heard that this was the best place to see the rare Hector (or New Zealand) Dolphins. They are some of the smallest dolphins in the world and they are only found in the wild in New Zealand. We saw tons of them! They are really curious animals and love to swim right up to the boat to play. We were even lucky enough to see two of them jumping out of the water and spinning in the air (of course we couldn’t react quickly enough to get a photo…sorry). We did manage a few video clips though, so we hope you enjoy those.

We also saw some beautiful scenery and some New Zealand fur seals sun bathing. The water was a bit rough at times and the wind was quite strong as we headed out, but once the sun came out, the day turned out to be perfect.

After the harbour cruise, we headed back to the town to walk around and check out the little shops. We got our first taste of Hokey Pokey ice cream which seems to be pretty popular here. It’s really pretty simple. It’s just a vanilla ice cream with some sort of small balls of crunchy toffee that are sweet and delicious. A perfect way to end our day in Akaroa.

We then boarded the shuttle for the hour and a half trip back to Christchurch (with one stop at a cheese factory for a cheese tasting; yeah that was definitely different). All in all, it was a great way to spend a Saturday.

For those of you who are curious, here’s a quick update on our jobs. Since quitting the horrible soliciting for charity jobs, we’ve been searching. As of now, it looks like we’ve had better luck finding jobs on the weekends than during the week. This weekend we’re working at a golf event for two days (4 hours each day) mingling with the crowd and collecting email addresses. Pretty hard work, right? We seem to be drawn to the odd jobs that pop up around here. Hopefully we can keep the streak going and string a few jobs together. We’ll be sure to keep you updated.

Hope all is well back home. Enjoy the week!

New Zealand Fur Seals





Dolphins Playing