blurpenguin

Heh... we overshot our stay in Christchurch and ended up rushing to Akaroa... the drive was windy and hilly!... and I barely whad time to stop and take in the views, furthermore it was kinda cloudy...

The top panaromic pix of Akaroa was taken a few days later when we went on a scenic drive of the valley... wow... it was super windy then... and to come out of the car to snap some photos, u had to brace from being blown away... but the drive was worth the view...

we only stopped at one vantage point on top of a hill before we went down to the valley of bays... here, we caught sight of several newborn lambs grazing on the hillslopes... they were extremely cute!


We were going to stay in this quaint Frenchy town of Akaroa for the next 6 days...

Julie's father had booked this place 1 year in advance via the RCI exchange connection, but the place only could take in 6 per unit, so Julie's Bro's family had to stay further down the road in a motel nearby... Our place was called Club Lavaud, an RCI place having only 4 individual 2-bedroom units! Talk about small... the whole town had all frenchy names...


We also went to church that sunday at this really old church... more than 200 years old! Their congregation was mostly made up of really old people... since most of the towns younger folks go off to Christchurch to work... but they did have a sunday school thingi for "impromtu" visitors... but worship was definately old school...


Grocery shopping was mostly at the only grocer in town - a 4 Square Chain, but that Saturday morning was an open market where some of the locals sold their own stuff... here we bought some vegetables - asparagus and sourdough bread... others were selling flowers and handmade crafts...


We had initially envisioned buying lobsters to cook, like how julie's parents did so 14 years ago... but we later found out the entire town had become commercialized, relying on tourism and retirees for their revenue... and almost all fishing activities had ceased... thus no more crayfishes! :(