View from the wharf in the other direction.
Akaroa
View from the wharf.
Akaroa
Spent a few hours in Akaroa, an ostensibly French town in the caldera of an extinct volcano. There was no one there except for me and about 17 billion other tourists.
The setting is stunning. The rim of the volcano forms a harbor of beautiful blue-green water.
In 1838, Captain Jean François L’Anglois bought most of Banks Peninsula from the Māori, then returned to France to find people willing to start a French colony. The British heard about this and, never missing a chance to stick it to the French, claimed the territory and set up a regional government, which the French colonists found waiting for them when they arrived in 1840. They stayed anyway, and Akaroa became a French town with a Māori name in British territory. Today, though, the only noticeable French influence is some of the street names.
Sundial in the Chch Botanic Gardens
Note the direction of the numbers.
Britishness
My guidebooks all describe Christchurch as “the most British of New Zealand cities.” They show pictures of the downtown area that look like this:
The downtown currently looks more like this:
Parts of it are reconstructed, but it’s a big job and they have a long way to go. Part of the reason may be that the government, like governments everywhere, has Grand Plans. They’re going to put in a stadium and a sports center and a performing arts precinct and a new library and several other things that I’ve forgotten. I’d wager that they don’t have the money to do any of it. So the downtown is still in rubble.
That aside, what the guidebooks don’t tell you is that the rest of the city looks more like Los Angeles than Cambridge. They even have agapanthus everywhere.
The only thing that’s British about it is that they drive on the left. The rest looks pretty American.
Chicken Desk
The first time through the Christchurch airport, I heard someone paged to go to the chicken desk. Much of the surrounding area consists of farms and ranches, but why they would have a special desk related to poultry was unclear.
When I came back to Christchurch, I heard it again, but now I’m a little more used to Kiwi vowels. It’s the check-in desk.
Which is, incidentally, down the steers and to the lift.
Chch
No more parrots on the balcony. I’m in Christchurch now, and this is what I see out my hotel windows:
Little Blue Penguins
In Halfmoon Bay.
Babbling on the Beach
Parrots on the Balcony
After mostly failing to see birds on Ulva Island, I came back to find numerous parrots outside my motel room. This one nibbled on my fingers and toes hoping for something to eat.
The parrot has the unfortunate name of kākā, although I don’t think it does any more than other birds. It makes a pleasant warbly splalking noise.
