We flew to Christchurch where we picked up our motorhome. A
big thank you to Tania from DetourNZ who sorted us out a great deal and has
been super helpful, nothing was too much trouble and she even went to lengths
to provide an itinerary. Our motorhome is similar to what we ended up in
Australia in the end, so plenty of space for the next three weeks. We are going
round the south island with the van and North Island in a 4x4.
We didn’t see much of Christchurch. Drove through some
suburbs but nothing seemed that nice. We went to the New Brighton Pier which
was ok and the beach was lovely but you could still see some serious signs of
earthquakes that devastated Christchurch in 2010/11. The roads were really bad,
houses boarded up/demolished and lots of the shops were closed down.
After what
we had seen so far in Christchurch we decided to give the central a miss and
drove to a place called Akaroa, which is about 1.5 hour from Christchurch via
some very winding roads. But when you finally get there the view is just
stunning! The picturesque French settlement village is the South Island’s
oldest town and is perched on the edge of a deep volcanic harbour. We found a
lovely campsite on the hills with views down to the Harbour, couldn’t ask
anything nicer for the start of our New Zeeland adventures. We only stayed
there for one night but decided if we still have time at the end of our three
week tour, we would return there for our last night.
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