Akoroa March 18th

On Sunday we packed everyone up in the van and drove to Akoroa.  It is about a 2 hour drive from Ashburton and is on the peninsula just east of Christchurch.

Akoroa is the only french settlement in New Zealand.  There are a few french names floating around and the streets are all called "Rue" ie we parked on Rue Jolie.  But that is about the extent of the french.  There are no native french speakers (that's the what the tour guide told us) in the area.

While we were there we went on a sailing tour of the harbour with Captain Ray.

As you can see he is telling a fish tail and *gasp* letting Luke drive the boat!  It is a 47 foot sloop and it was a shame the wind the did not blow because it is a racing yacht and it would have been a fabulous sail.  But, it was calm as anything so we  mainly motored (I think Jamie was happy about this, he has not been thrilled with boats so far).  We did get to haul up the mainsail and did a couple of tacks (Matt was happy as this was while he was driving the boat).

Jamie is not a fan of boats but he did decide he liked this one after and hour or so...

On the trip we got to see Hector's dolphin's (I have no idea who Hector is) They are the world's smallest dolphins and tend to live singly or in pairs.

They liked to ride the pressure wave at the front of the boat and this kept the kids (and me) busy going from side to side at the bow to watch them.  Luckily no one fell overboard.

After our 3 hour tour... we headed into town to check out the shops including looking at the Blue Pearls (I did not buy one, maybe next time)  and have dinner.   One nice thing about New Zealand is that the seafood is fabulous!  Matt and I had scallops and the fish special.  The kids ate hamburgers... Some things never change.