Thursday 20^th. Feb.

Pick up Hire Car : Ford Focus 2000cc Automatic

Drive gently to Lyttelton Bay, Governor’s Bay, Akaroa via the summit road, ready for the evening pickup by BP Track van. Excess Baggage stored by the Company. The Banks Peninsular Track is a company set up by the landowners as a diversification project. You pay for the walk which is marked every step of the way (almost literally) but it includes transport to the start, accommodation in the huts and transport of bags to 3 out of the 4 huts. It is about 35 km. long and you can do it in 4 days, or 2 days as I did.

Both Lyttelton Harbour and Akaroa are sea flooded volcanic craters, and the colour is a lovely powder blue.

 

Akaroa from the Summit Road 

Scenery very reminiscent of Scotland, but the grass is very dry and brown at this time of year, yet the trees dark green and very different. When you look more closely the trees are evergreens in a warm climate adapted to conserve moisture, and a lot of the rock is compressed volcanic pumice, and the trees.

Picked up by the Banks Peninsular Track bus and driven to the start hut for the night, Onuku at the end of the road. Only 4 people are allowed on the 2 day walk (12 on the 4 day) and my companions are Martin and Mathius (a Swiss and a German living in Sydney) and Lila a French girl, who, having just finished her Hydrology PhD in the south of France, is having a holiday in NZ; she has friends here and would like to live here at some stage, before heading to Glasgow next week for a couple of years where her boyfriend is doing a PhD in Philosophy? She’s in for a shock!