We came to Akaroa on a recommendation from Kari and Niall, so I was like, BETTER BE WORTH IT. But to start at the beginning, yesterday morning we bid farewell to the North Island and flew in to Christchurch. For reasons clear to Sim, who developed our itinerary, it made more sense to go straight to Akaroa for a night, then return to Christchurch for a stay there.
Even the drive to Akaroa was annoyingly beautiful: rolling fluorescent green hills dotted with bouncing baby lambs flowing down into turquoise waters (think the Kingfisher Blue in your Derwent box). Akaroa itself, the principal town on Akaroa harbour, was the landing-place of a boatload of French colonists, who set out to steal the South Island from the local Maori residents in the name of King Louis Philippe, and were pipped at the post by the Brits by a whole two weeks. 175 years later, Akaroa continues to glorify their pioneering spirit of colonial expansionism. Basically everything in the town is a load-bearing Historical Monument plaque, much of it relating to the whaling industry.
The town itself is pretty tiny, but beautiful. If you can imagine a coastal village of white timber cottages draped in wisteria and punctured liberally with French flags, you’re fairly close. Add a ludicrously high bistro-to-citizen ratio and you’ve got the picture. When we passed one with a blackboard sign proclaiming “Moet madness!”, I knew I had found my People. (We dined deeply and well there, and can make recommendations for anyone passing that way.)
This morning it was time for boating! Every time I go out on a boat I somehow convince myself that this time, I definitely won’t get sick. My endless capacity for self-deception somehow eclipses the memory of all lived experience. And look, while we were in the harbour, it was pretty much fine. It wasn’t till we got near the headlands that things really became choppy, and my stomach started to plunge floorwards with each passing crest. All I could think was that this had been a mistake – until the dolphins showed up.
The dolphins in question were Hector’s dolphins, the smallest of all the cetaceans. Around 8,000 are thought to remain in the wild, many of them in the vicinity of Akaroa harbour. (Evidently they come into the harbour to calve, but it was too early in the year for that.) As we left the heads we started spotting flashes of fins of feeding pods, and we got a sense pretty fast of whether they were interested in us or not. Some pretty much ignored us; others, however, sprinted straight over to us and started showing off in the bow wave. There was an exciting moment when I thought a couple had gone away again, then looked straight down over the bow and saw them actually under the boat, racing out occasionally in front to surface. Later, we were suddenly mobbed by seven or eight all together, some of them jumping in and out of the water, and others more shadowy deeper down but keeping pace with us.
Our crew consisted of a guide, a pilot, and a Cairn terrier named Cara. Cara was probably more excited than anyone else on board to see the dolphins (despite going out on the boat several times a day). She ran up to the bow, making wuffling terrier noises and standing with her feet up on the railing to watch them. Anyone familiar with the former Stenning dog known as Cupid will know what I mean when I say that she would probably have dived in after the dolphins first, and thought about it a distant second. Cara was aloof by comparison.
As well as dolphins, we saw loads of bird life, including Giant Petrels, Little Blue Penguins, Pied Shags, Spotted Shags, Hutton’s Shearwaters, and probably others. We also got up close to a few New Zealand Fur Seals, and spotted one lonely Leopard Seal from afar (definitely avoiding us). The dolphins were the highlight though, and it was pretty amazing to see something endangered in the wild. After girding our seasick stomachs with some saltiness in the form of fish and chips, it was on (or, strictly, back) to Christchurch.