South Island - East Coast: Part 1

With a week to get to the next match all the way down south in Dunedin, we made for the ferry. Napier (an art deco town built after an earthquake flattened the original in the 1930's) provided a scenic lunch stop. 

Docking in Picton, we drove twenty minutes south from the port to Blenheim in Marlborough, New Zealand's largest wine region. Full of enthusiasm to taste the local vines we hired bikes and set off to explore. 40kms later with rosy cheeks and feeling very saddle sore, we wobbled back to base, having sampled several of the best wines the region had to offer. We saw some of the best scenery and had one of the sunniest, funniest days of the trip, but the air was blue on the last leg of the cycle as we sweated and swore our way back. We jumped in the campsite jacuzzi to rest our sore muscles but still walked like John Wayne for the following two days! 

Further down the east coast, we stopped at Christchurch. Admittedly, we were curious to see the damage done by the earthquake - car crash tourism - but we didn't expect the city to be so sad and empty. One year on, almost all businesses and homes remain abandoned, with no power or water and much structural damage. Large sections of the town centre are still inaccessible and newspapers report on the aftershocks that are occurring regularly. The council have just appointed the team in charge of the rebuild but no plans have been agreed yet. The owner of the site we camped on said she was very grateful for our business. The tourism industry has collapsed and the outlook is bleak for her livelihood. We had a drink in literally the only bar in town, and moved on the next day. 

We stumbled upon Akaroa on leaving Christchurch and we were so glad we did! A small French influenced harbour town, it's waterfront cafes and bars were bathed by the sun and we wasted no time in deciding to stay a night. We soaked up the rays with a walk along the beach, took a stroll through the galleries and shops and had lunch in the harbour. Perched on wooden benches, watching the sun go down in a tiny bar that juts out over the water, we knew we'd found a spot to remember as a highlight of out trip. Akaroa is a town many tourists skip over as it's an hour off the main drag from Christchurch to Dunedin. This us a huge shame- we really loved it and could have spent weeks there.

Our last stop en route to Dunedin was the industrial Victorian-built town of Omaru. A quirky town, we found the olde-worlde nature of the place a bit odd at first (cobbled streets, sculptures of skeletons, old fashioned shop fronts, abandoned mills and old rusty train tracks), but it was all of this that left us charmed by the time we had to leave.

Next stop - Dunedin.

Neil and Joss