01/30/12 Akaroa

 As the first 2 pictures show, the South Island of New Zealand is spectacular—mountains and cliffs tumbling down into fjord-like bays. It makes you want to put on your hiking boots and head into the hills or, at least, drive through all the little town, along the bays and over the mountains—a Jeep would have been nice today.

Prior to 2011, we would have spent the day in Christchurch, but the earthquake of last February has closed down the port and most of the attractions in that beautiful city. Instead, we spent the day in Akaroa on the Banks peninsula, SE of Christchurch. Akaroa is a town of 500 people and our ship of 450 would make it seemed crowded. But the Sun Princess was here too—all 2000+ passengers. The locals looked forward to our leaving!

We did learn something interesting about earthquakes in NZ. Housing insurance is provided (sold) by the New Zealand government—there are no private housing insurance companies. Therefore, the government is incented to have a very extensive department that studies earthquakes and building to withstand earthquakes. New construction must meet very high standards.

It was a quiet day today. We wandered around town and enjoyed the views from our ship. And even though NZ is an independent country, we enjoyed that latent British way of saying things (3^rd picture). The French were also here and that is reflected in restaurants and street name. Don’t know whether it’s NZ, British or French bad sense of direction in the last picture.