January
1st January 2005
Another interesting New Year's day. Marisa and I headed out to Akaroa to plan our year. We took the summit tourist drive and were amazed by the spectacular views looking down over the various beaches of Bank's Peninsular. One of our first resolutions, we are going to come back and visit a couple of these beaches this Summer.
--Brook
9th January 2005
Well, its official. We're acclimatized and even find ourselves going to the beach when the temperature is barely in the high twenties.
We headed off mid-morning to the Summit Road tourist drive on Bank's Peninsular, named, of course, after the famous botanist Joseph Peninsular :)
To get to the Summit Road simply follow Highway 75 out of Christchurch, through Haslwell, Taitapu and Little River for about 70Kms. The road veers off to the left traveling, as the name implies along the top of the mountains.
Let me just give this warning. As you travel up into the hills out of Cooptown be prepared to stop and park along the way. There are some incredible views but the twisting, turning road is not the place to get distracted. Pull over and take it all in. You will find that you will want to do this a lot. So do it a lot. It's worth it.
When you finally turn onto the Summit Road you will be greeted with even more spectacular views, into the valleys and bays on both sides of the road.
On the left hand side of the road are a number of beaches. These fan out from small inlets into clam shell shaped, shallow, protected expanses of water. Okain's is one such beach and has a camping ground practically on the beach but separated from it by a stand of pine trees. On each side of the beach steep hills protect the beach from wind creating an idyllic, lagoon like feel to the area.
We parked our car near the camping ground. We had lunch and hot coffee in the shade of the pine trees and carried our folding chairs down to the beach. The tide was out leaving the beach very wide. Swimmers share this beach with jet skis and small boats. There was even a small land yacht cruising up and down the beach.
The sand is firm and a number of vehicles actually park on the beach itself at various places. However this isn't a problem. The beach is very long and not very populous.
After setting up our chairs Gabriel and I decided to go for a swim. We walked down to the edge of the water and cautiously stepped in. This was, after all, only our second swim in New Zealand waters and we were prepared for it to be quite cold. It wasn't.
As it turned out the water was very shallow and reasonably warm, although, as I have said previously, we are now somewhat acclimatized. We managed to walk at least a hundred metres from the shore and the water was still only chest deep.
We swam for about half an hour. I was amazed, looking back towards the shore, at the green hills rising sharply from the water. Sheep graze on these slopes. This is such a contrast to the bare white beaches, low scrub and sand hills of the coastal country I am used to.
The sand is actually quite dark and gets surprisingly hot in the sun so do take some flip-flops or jandals with you. Marisa took a wonderful photograph of the sand patterns that form as the dark, volcanic sand is washed over the denser, silica sand. These wavy lines extended in a fifty metre wide strip between where we had set up our beach chairs to the waterline.
By the way, I recommend the folding camp chairs that we had with us. We bought these chairs for about $NZ10 each and they have been worth their weight in gold. The are comfortable, take seconds to set up, and are lightweight to carry. If you're traveling around New Zealand, it's a good idea to have a couple of these in the boot.
I settled into a chair for some quiet contemplation while Marisa and Gabriel went for another swim. After that we decided to head home. As we drove back from the beach we stopped at a little general store. We bought some ice creams and had a quick look at this little township. There was a Marae (Maori meeting place) and a small museum here. Unfortunately the museum was closed but we shall endeavour to visit it when we return.
--Brook
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