Day 39 Onuku Farm

Today was spent exploring Onuka Farm which the hostel sits on, as not only is it the perfect point for a lot of walks but it’s set in some beautiful grounds, the inside is pretty welcoming too. Translation being, I spent the day in a hammock reading and enjoying the views before monitoring a game of scrabble between Karin and Axel (which was amusing as I was the only one with English as my first language).

 The view from the kitchen

 Once evening started to fall Juliet made an apple pie, the smell of which saturated the whole house and inspired me, Axel and Karin to make our own! A quick trip into Akaroa for flour and cinnamon led to us making a Swedish Apple Pie – the recipe coming from Axel, obviously. It was kind of like an apple crumble, and delicious.

 Before we popped in the oven 

 We had it out on the veranda with several other lovely people from the hostel with fresh vanilla ice cream. Pretty perfect end to a perfect day. It’s also ours, Karins, and Tula and Bob’s last night here so it coincidentally served as a farewell-meal-sort-of-thing.

I was surprised how lovely and amazing everyone was at Bunkers, on Stewart Island, and the same thing has happened here. I’ve met some life long friends who I feel ridiculously close to, even though we’ve actually only known each other a day or so! I’m finally understanding why Mark, from Queenstown, said the most memorable thing about his time in New Zealand was the people he’d met, and I’m starting to agree. Although the scenery is still jostling for first place. 

Day 38 Look Out Rock

Today was all about making the most of the amazing walks that were right on my doorstep in Akaroa. Considering our hostel was a last resort it’s actually the perfect place to do a whole host of beautiful walks, today’s choice was the ridge walk and then the walk to Lookout Rock, in total it all took about 4 hours which was 4 hours well spent as the views were absolutely stunning. The views very nearly made up for the fact the entire walk was up hill. On the plus side coming down only took an hour, instead of the 3 it took to get up, partly because I had to run down as it was just too steep to try and walk.

I won’t ramble too much about the walk other than to say it was the perfect day for it, I have a few tan lines, and the time I spent gazing out at lookout rock will stick with me for life, not only was the air was incredibly fresh and crisp but it was almost entirely silent with only the occasional bird song piercing the quiet.

 The beginning of the walk - through a field of sheep

 The view was already stunning after climbing the first section, and the views just got better

 One curious little sheep 

 The occasional white blob on a rock or a random post was all that guided the way - not the best idea since a lot of the moss etc that grow on the boulders here is white too.. 

The fields themselves were pretty interesting as they were liberally scattered with various rocks and boulders 

 I did have a tiny scare when all the sheep, whose field I was walking through, started running at me. Turns out, the farmer was rounding in the sheep for shearing, which he explained when we followed the running sheep. His 5 adorable, and friendly dogs deserve a mention too – they were so energetic, constantly running around, bounding over all the huge boulders that dot the landscape.

 For amount a mile this was my path

 One of my favourite photos!

 I ended up doing all of these three walks as I figured  I might as well
 (also I really couldn't be bothered climbing back up this point again tomorrow)

 I didn't take any photos from the rock itself as the warning all around kind of scared me, I climbed to the edge and let my feet dangle off the edge but I didn't linger for too long!

 Instead I retreated higher to a lovely little spot where I read my book for awhile 

After my walk me and Karin went down to the harbor in the centre of Akaroa where we got to see the town at sunset, which was lovely as the French themed town positively glowed with the warm setting sun.