Akaroa - New Zealand

To the South of Christchurch is the Banks Peninsula and nested within this, in the crater of an extinct volcano, is French Bay. On the shore French Bay lies the town of Akaroa. On our first night in New Zealand, we found ourselves at Akaroa.

Panoramic view over French Bay.

Akaroa is steeped in colonial history, or more precisely failed French colonial history. In 1838 Jean Langois bought a rather large tract of land from the Maori and planned to return to New Zealand with French settlers. He also tried to get the support from France to colonise the whole of New Zealand. When the British heard of this, they did what the Victorians typically did, and sent a gunboat to meet the settlers. Despite this, Akaroa existed peacefully as a French settlement albeit under the British flag.

A house displaying the tricoluer.

On New year's eve we were exhausted after our Australian activities. We managed one beer and to stay up until 22.00 and watch the sun set.



This all sounds jolly interesting, but this is a blog about adventures in far away places, and so far there hasn't been much adventure in Akaroa. Well, Akaroa is also famous for the Hector's dolphins which live in the habour. These are the smallest dolphins in the world and on New Year's day we set out to meet them.

We took a boat with Black Cat cruises into the harbour in search of the Hector's dolphins.

Anni at the harbour.

We were lucky to see a mother and her pup almost straight away. The pup was tiny and resembled a rugby ball with flippers. For those of you who aren't familiar with rugby (perhaps the Finns) - it is a tough sport played with a an oblong ball resembling a baby Hector dolphin.

When we found a group of adults we were able to get out of the boat and swim with them. Anni - the dolphins behind you!

Close up of dolphin. These were considerably smaller than us.

A pair of dolphins surfing towards us.