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cnr Rue Jolie & Church Street, Akaroa, 8161, New Zealand
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A French place in New Zealand - the same colours.
No cemetery but a central burial ground.
Un musée très intéressant... ;-)
As any good addicted VTer knows, it is important to add new cities to your map as soon as possible. When you arrive in Akaroa, you can immediately hit the main strip in town and add it quickly and effectively at Bon-E-Mail. It seemed to be an unintended email location that took coins, so just show up, use your $1 or $2 dollars worth, and head on about your way.
The shop is located on the main street through Akaroa, although I did not write down the address.
The French settlers who arrived in Akaroa were far from the first Europeans to set foot on the Banks Peninsula.
Sealers had been visiting the place for decades and had ravaged the seal population in the insatiable and lucrative search for the skins of these gorgeous creatures - to the point where they eventually killed their own trade.
Next came the whalers -who made good use of the Peninsula's safe harbours to careen their ships for repairs and to trade with with local people for fresh food and to take on water.
In the days of sail, New Zealand Flax was a valuable commodity for the production of rope, miles of which were needed for each and every ship that put to sea, and so the flax traders joined the whalers.
These were all itinerate callers but in 1837, a shore whaling station, the first permanent European settlement on the South Island, was established at Paraki soon to be followed by others in bays all around the Peninsula.
These huge copper cauldrons are remnants of that age - they were used for rendering the blubber into the liquid gold that whale oil was in these days before gas and electric lighting.
There are several of them along the waterfront in Akaroa - reminders of a horrible industry that, thankfully, is long gone. As such, they're hardly a "favourite thing" but they are a potent symbol of the long history of European contact with this distant corner of the world.
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Here is a photo of Akaroa, taken from the Akaroa Reserve. I have added the names of locations in the photo, so you have an impression of the layout of the town.
On the photo the northern part of the place is hidden behind a slope of the hill, right of Beach Road (promenade) and the beach. In this area are the Visitor Centre, the Langlois-Eteveneau House, and the other attractions of Rue Lavaud.
If you like the beach then head down to the Akaroa Beach if you're in town... We were there on a 'warmish' day and there were heaps of people at the beach...and even some people in the water swimming! Brrr!! ;)
Another of my favorite memories is of the walk I took immediately after we'd arrived and taken our gear inside Bon Accord backpackers.
I wanted to see exactly how close we were to the water's edge, so I set off from Bon Accord, crossed the road, and followed a little path near Rue Jolie, which led me past a beautiful garden with many of these Red Hot Poker flowers, which looked just magnificent against the harbour and the blue sky.
Not sure if they're a NZ flower, as we have them in Australia too, but this was the first time I'd been up close to any in NZ.
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