Akaroa, 30.11.08

After we returned Rebecca - and indeed as Ophir well expressed, it took us some time to recover - we changed the style of the trip. We needed a holiday from the holiday, thus we chose 2 places to stay at each few days. Just relaxing and not doing much…
But first we stayed few days in Christchurch with Averil, our fourth Servas host in New Zealand. It was quite an experience because Averil is different! She’s interested in issues such as anarchism, socialism, & feminism. She is a taxi driver and lives in an old house in a poor neighborhood. It was amazing that although her financial state is bad, she treated us so generously.
We didn’t like Christchurch itself. We had a bad image of it before we came (we heard about the prevalent car theft), and we heard more about theft, vandalism and crime from Averil. We just didn’t find the city as pleasant and charming as we were told for they call it the garden city.
After two nights in Christchurch we drove about 200km north. We rented a holiday home about 20 minutes south to Kaikoura for 4 days. It was a pretty old house but it was fun to stay at it. We didn’t do much – just as we planned! We walked on the beach (30 seconds from the house), visited a nearby winery and wondered around at the town center of Kaikoura. Amit & Ido were less lazy and went on a sea kayaking trip around the peninsula to see seals, while the girls strolled around town (one street).

3 days ago we drove back toward Christchurch, crossed it and drove more south to Akaroa. Akaroa is the biggest town in the Banks Peninsula and we loooovvvvvvvve peninsulas!!! It was the first French settlement in NZ - you can still feel it in this very lovely place surrounded by French flags and gardens in many houses.
Again we’re staying in a holiday home. We’ve been driving a lot in the peninsula, especially up the hills, preferably on unsealed roads… The sceneries are amazing and you just don’t get tired of it. We also play at nights a complicated monopoly but this financial game seems to destroy the good relationship among the family members. It is much safer to play Pi-Ko-Lo Pi-Ko-Lo Pi-Ko-Lo… We are all excited and a bit restless due to the fact that in 2 days we’re leaving NZ!!!