quick trip to Christchurch, then 2 month stay in Akaroa

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I haven’t updated in quite some time. So I’ll quickly bring you all up to pace. After leaving Picton I had a quick stop in Christchurch. The main city on the south island, however it’s really just a large town. It’s apparently very English with its stone church and large square and a river running through the city. Though, I haven’t been to England, so I’ll just take it as truth. In Christchurch I visited a couple of Art galleries, the Canterbury Museum, and the Botanical Gardens.

After leaving Christchurch, I headed east to Akaroa in the banks peninsula. I stayed in Akaroa for 2 months - November 22 up until January 29th. I had arrived in Akaroa to wwoof (work for Accommodation and food) at Purple Peak Retreat which is a hostel/campground/walker’s café. Akaroa is a small town (the commercial district is 1 street about 8 blocks long) where kiwis come for their summer holidays - some have holiday homes here costing upwards of $1,000,000. Everyone in Akaroa knows each other and thus gossip spread around this town really quickly.

Purple Peak Retreat is high up above Akaroa on an extinct volcano. Our only neighbors were sheep, rabbits, possums and hedgehogs - oh and Frank, our only human neighbor who actually also owns the property. Darin who owns the Purple Peak Retreat (PPR) also runs the Adventure Centre in Akaroa, and so for 3 to 4 days a week I was either at PPR checking in guests, tidying up, making beds, chopping firewood (or at least attempting to) and keeping the fire going - as it was our only source for hot water or I was at the Adventure Centre booking guests on harbor tours and swimming with the dolphins packages or directing guests to the beach to see Darin about kayak rentals. The remaining days of the week, I held a paying job. At first I attempted to work at the bakery in town, but it really wasn’t a good fit for me. I ended up finding a job (for better pay but fewer hours) at a motel in town where I was cleaning motel rooms for a couple of hours a day in the mornings.

During my free time in Akaroa, I was able to take in some of the local activities. PPR is located a 5-10 minutes’ walk away from several hikes, and thus I hiked a steep downhill - but very scenic walk from the top the volcano down to Akaroa - a good 1 ½ hour hike, I’ve done quite a few of the many trails at a nature reserve just a 10 minutes’ walk from PPR . 1 of which included a walk to Long Bay - a 2 hour walk each way (4 hour return (Round trip in American English)) to a secluded private beach with public access. The walk crosses through some private farm land - and for a good 20 minutes you are walking along the
same land that many sheep graze upon.

On one free weekend, I took an overnight trip to another nearby bay - Barry’s Bay. From there I biked Onawe -an old Maori Pa - fortress, which is now a great peninsula (which turns into an island during high tide) to walk up and see Akaroa harbor with its many bays from high up.
On a couple of free afternoons, I took advantage of Darin’s relationship with a local sailboat operator, whereby any of Darin’s wwoofers were allowed to take a harbor tour on the sailboat for free. On both occasions, I saw many Hector’s dolphin’s upclose from aboard the Fox II.
I spend both Christmas and New Years up at PPR. On Christmas a group of us Wwoofers, Darin, and several guests went down to Hickory Bay -another secluded beach along the Pacific Ocean. We had a picnic dinner, tried our hand at surfing, and saw seals along the shore, in my case, almost got attacked by one. New Years Eve was a little more laidback. We prepared a BBQ at PPR for all the guests. And while the guests were out partying in the guest lounge and outside, us wwoofers, Darin, Robbie (Darrin’s friend), and Doreen and Danny (our resident guests) partied it up in our own area. We somehow missed the countdown though, so we had our new year’s delayed by a few seconds.
It wasn’t until a couple of weeks before I was leaving that I decided to take advantage of the kayaks available at the adventure Centre. Thus I only kayaked twice in Akaroa, but enjoyed it very much and look forward to continue kayaking in the future.

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