Harriet goes to sea - Akaroa

We spent our first night in a caravan park above the town of Akaroa and our second night parked by the beach, free camping with about 12 other vans near the middle of the town - on a peninsula south of Christchurch. Akaroa is actually in the crater of an extinct volcano. It too was effected by the earthquake. Its war memorial is fenced off and the post office is closed, but everything else looks fine. It is a lovely French influenced seaside town. A bit touristy but very friendly and relaxed and wet!

Harriet enjoyed her time on Tony's boat on his Coast up Close tour. 2 hours in the harbour and out to sea looking for wildlife.



Fluffy's job on board is to look for dolpins. She took her job very seriously.

We did eventually see 2 Hectors Dolpins, a quite a few seals, a couple of little blue penguins swimming out off shore, and birds including shags, aka cormorants, but the highlight for me was krill! There were swarms of them floating like red clouds in the water. I always thought they were tiny almost microscopic things but they aren't.

 Tony scooped some up for people to taste. I could not bring myself to eat them as they were alive. Apparently they are very salty but not like prawns.

Even if we had seen no wildlife, the spectacular coastline was worth the trip. Can you see the elephant? We saw several waterfalls.

And it did not rain while we were out on the boat! Amazing! As it started raining when we got off the boat at about 4.30 and did not stop all night and the next day we left Arakoa in the rain.