Akaroa & Christchurch

After a brief stint in Christchurch we headed down to Akaroa for the night. I say brief stint as Greg and I generally don’t stay in major cities for more than a night traveling, particularly on a camping type trip. Our favorite times are always where we look around and say, “Where are all the tourists”?

Akaroa is beautiful. It is a little gem situated directly on a large ocean bay nestled in between grass, tree and sheep covered hills. It is a scenic hour and a half’s drive south of Christchurch.

Akaroa is famous for the Hector dolphin, apparently the world’s smallest and rarest dolphin breed. Of course, numerous excursion shops litter the waterfront promising various interactions with the little creatures, the most popular of which is swimming with the dolphins. The only available time left was 7:30 am the next morning. I’m sure they are cool, but for me they are not 7:30 am in the (forecasted) rain and freezing cold water cool.

Many of the other promoted excursions were booked up, canceled due to wind or just weren’t grabbing our attention, so we settled on doing a hike. There were various trips to pick from; hikes through the woodlands, hikes along the ocean, and for the more adventurous, hikes up to various peaks of the surrounding hills. We decided on the 4-7 hour, 800-meter vertical hike to the top of Stony Bay Peak, estimating that is usually takes us half the suggested amount of time on most walks and hikes on the tourist trail.

It’s too bad you can’t bank “sweat hours” for when you are feeling particularity lazy, as we would have earned a few get out of workout free cards.

As we began the hilly trek I decided we were the workout equivalent of having eyes too big for our stomachs. It was extremely challenging but, as most things that you have to work for, extremely rewarding. As many of the roads in New Zealand are windy treks up and down the sides of steep hills, we have seen our fair share of beautiful views. Nothing however, has compared to the views we experienced hiking this trail. I’m not sure if that’s because we had the time to properly absorb it, or because we got to take in equally beautiful little details like wild flowers along with the panoramic views.  Regardless, it was breathtaking.

We both are fully aware that the following pictures are a little cheesy, but we don’t care… we worked hard for those suckers. Please, in particular, enjoy the picture of Greg jumping in the air and me doing some sort of dance move that was lost in the early 80’s. The camera was propped up with a piece of dry sheep poop to accurately document that shot.

I will say that there is a big difference between eating because you are hungry and consuming calories because your body needs to fuel. One of my favorite feelings is eating after a heavy and intense work out. It’s hard to describe, but “fueling” your body feels so good when it is well earned. That being said we fueled ourselves with (health conscious stop reading here) ice cream, lattes and a well-deserved pizza.

Up next, Mt Cook, the largest glacier in the southern hemisphere. I can guarantee we won’t be hiking that one to the top!

Lots of love to everyone back home!