Day 40 The Hobbit

Rain was forecast all over the peninsula today and for once the weatherman was right - luckily our plans were relatively minimal. After lots of goodbyes to everyone at the hostel me and Axel set off Christchurch. We got to Christchurch pretty quickly but then we had to attempt to locate the hostel.. and that didn't go so smoothly. I’m not sure why, as the layout of the city on various maps looks very clear, but Christchurch is a labyrinth! A labyrinth I tell you! We were going in circles for ages, and I’ve no idea why as it was supposed to be so easy…

We did eventually get to the hostel and check in, we didn’t stop for too long as vagabond’s though as we drove to the Palms, a sort of shopping centre, where we picked up our tickets for the night and whiled away our time in a coffee shop (where else?) and they sold the zingy-est homemade lemonade I’ve ever tried. After a quick dinner we headed back to the hostel where we both fell soundly asleep. The idea was to get a nap in before the film, but both of us underestimated how tired we were and slept for much longer than planned!

Anyway, we went to see the midnight premier of the Hobbit! I’ve never gone to the midnight viewing of anything before and we both wanted to be some of the first people to see the film, and to see it in NZ so… 1 minute past midnight on the 12^th it was!

After the film I just about made it into bed before I fell asleep! 

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.

Day 37 Edoras

We managed to score a 4 bed share room for just the two of us last night so we had a really good night sleep – getting more than 6 hours is becoming a rarity. Then we quickly checked out and set off towards Mt Summers and the gravel road that would eventually lead us to the platau where Edoras was filmed in The Lord of The Rings!

 There were no signs to take up to Mt Sunday and it only appears on a handful of maps, again, every place seems to have several different names and occasionally, as in this case, things just aren’t on a lot of maps. Anyway we took a road which looked as if it was in roughly the right direction, via a strange detour through private property… oops.

 Yes I made Axel pull over and then I stood in the middle of the road to take a picture... never going to quite get used to how deserted the roads are! 

 The terrible gravel path that resulted in us both having sore heads

 (it was so bouncy we often bit our heads on the roof of the car no matter how slow we went...)

 Anyway we saw some amazing landscapes but we didn’t make it all the way for 2 reasons, we still weren’t sure we were on the right road and didn’t want to carry on for hours in the wrong direction, and the road was terrible for the car. They do run tours to the spot and one passed us… it had 6 wheels and was still taking it very slow. After that we figured we weren’t too fussed about the mountain itself it was more just seeing the landscape in person, since in the films they used lots of different areas for the filming.

Today was filled with beautiful views as we were treated to this on the drive into Akaroa!

After that little detour it was off to Akaroa! All the hostels in the small French town were fully booked (there was only 2 actually) but we found a little farm-based hostel out in the country side. It’s up on the top of a hill so haslovely views of the harbor and to top it off has great walks all around the ridge. 

P.S I'm about 5 days behind with posting stuff on here, I've written my daily entries and the like but it's a nightmare trying to get hold of internet!