Day 6 Monday, March 18, 2019 Akaroa
We enjoyed the eccentric Giant's House, with all its mosaic artwork and sculptures in a vast terraced garden. The artist, Josie Martin, with her bright blue hair, was there to greet us and explain the story of her home and gardens. It was all quite a sight to behold.
We awoke during our approach through the long bay (which is what "Akaroa" means) into the Banks Peninsula, and then we anchored. After an early buffet breakfast, we tendered in to the pier and boarded our bus, driven by Peter Spiller. He was informative and funny, and by golly, we got to know him quite well during the Gate 1 tour!
Those French-flag colors tell a story about this little town of only 600. It has a French influence, with the streets called "Rue", because many French settled here in 1840. But the actual story is kind of funny, because the British beat them here by only a few months. In 1838, the French purchased the area from the Maori for 240 lbs worth of goods, but before their settlers arrived, the British had claimed it. They let the 75 French stay, and it has kept a French flavor to this day.
Akaroa became a cruise-ship port only after the 2011 Christchurch earthquake, which severely damaged the port nearest to Christchurch, Lyttleton. The port has not been restored for this reason.
Our excursion began with a sheep farm visit over the hills toward Christchurch. The distance to Christchurch was 50 miles, so as we drove over the scenic hills, I kept commenting to Janet that if we lived here, I would create a Century bike ride from there to Akaroa and back, as long as they would close the roads to vehicles.
With front-row seats, I got some nice photos.
Our stop was at Manderley Farm, owned by Ross and Mary Millar since 1975 (Kia Ora!). Besides tending to his sheep business and building everything on their property, Ross is also a sheep-dog trainer, contestant, and competition judge. He told of the hardships he faces as a sheep farmer on his own. He started with nothing when he arrived in NZ, and right out of high school he elected to take a job on a sheep farm because it paid as much as a college-educated accountant. Once Britain joined the EU, their sheep export business went away, so many sheep farmers switched to cattle and dairy. There used to be 80 million sheep in 1982 (21 for every human), but it dropped to 27 million (7 per human).
The rest of his flock had already been sheared, but he saved one of them to shear for us. Each sheep is sheared annually. Of course, he knew how to control the lamb and made it look easy.
Vroom vroom vroom, and he was done! The lamb never seemed to struggle. He used a machine shearer, the modern method.
Ross let us touch the lanolin-rich skin.
We went outside for the sheep-dog demonstration. The sheep were scattered near those trees halfway up the hill.
He had four dogs, each lying there calmly waiting for any instruction. The one he called out was not in this photo. He blew his whistle in certain ways, and off the dog charged up the hill. He rounded them up, and...
...down they ran. Ross continued to send signals to the dog for what to do by blowing his whistle in certain patterns that he had taught the dogs.
It was fun to watch! After this, he whistled and his dog sent them back out of the yard.
One of Ross's Dog Trial awards, from 2012.
We then went into the family home for fresh homemade sausage rolls and beverages. Dave Upton had told me how delicious Mary's rolls were (when I booked this excursion from him), so I told her and she gave me two of them to take back to him. Dave was so grateful and later told me how much he enjoyed them.
This was the Ross patio behind their home, where we ate our goodies before departing back to Akaroa. A fun experience at the Manderley Farm!
Two views of the Akaroa Harbor on our drive back to town. During this bus trip, Peter told his Maori jokes, following his story of a legendary Maori battle on the peninsula in the top photo. The victors ate their victims! Apparently Maori were known for their cannabalism of their battle victims, even though they play that down nowadays. But here were Peter's jokes: a) Little Betty was "8" before she was 7; and b) Betty, if you don't like your brother, then eat your vegetables! We roared. Later, when Peter was our driver/guide for Gate 1, I pestered him until he told those same jokes.
Our next stop was Giant's House. This photo shows only how the garden is beautifully landscaped, but I will post 16 more photos without captions to illustrate the incredible mosaics Josie has created over the past 20 years since she bought the house.
Here is Josie Martin, "world reknown artist". Our tickets included a tour of her home (very few did), given by her, so we got to hear her life story. She's a native New Zealander, and was an artist who moved here in the 90s just to have a quiet place to create her art and do her gardening. Her move into mosaics came when she found buried pieces of glass when she was preparing a part of her garden. With those pieces, she formed the "door mat" shown below:
Josie later learned that these pieces were from a 19th-century sailing ship. Its beauty inspired all the mosaics she now has throughout her property.
This is the only photo I took inside her home, but there were "creative" (mostly weird) artworks everywhere.
Now, the next 16 photos only begin to show what it was like in her gardens:
Be thankful I didn't include my other 20 photos! We did love all the color and creativity, and Josie is still going at it full bore. Driver/guide Peter commented that although he understood why it was a tourist attraction, he still thought Josie was a pure, unadulterated crack pot. LOL
The bus went down the steep hill back to the main street, where Janet and I said goodbye so that we could exchange for NZ dollars and grab some lunch.
Does it really look like the artist is painting Janet's and my portrait? We ate lunch at Ma Maison, a French restaurant (!) overlooking the bay, and then strolled back to the ship.
The Peninsula War Memorial (1923).
This was a memorial to the Christchurch victims, held the day before. Many ship passengers took their excursions to Christchurch, but we had not planned it since we'd be seeing it later on the Gate 1 tour. Princess allowed anyone who had booked a Christchurch excursion to cancel without penalty if they felt uneasy about any potential lingering violence there (or any other reason).
The sign on the cauldron gives the details for the memorial held the day before. It also states: "Better to light a candle than to curse the darkness," and, "This is not who we are." Janet and I were always touched by the outpouring of sympathy and grief for the country's tragedy, which continued for the next month while we toured NZ. Our trip ended from Christchurch, and our van to the airport passed in front of the mosque where the shooting took place, and it was smothered with flowers and memorials.
Pretty scenery both close up and afar, on our stroll around the bay to the pier. Our ship is SO far away, but wasn't really that bad.
Their historic lighthouse, built in 1878 and situated out at the bay's headlands, then moved here in 1980.
One last look back at Akaroa's bay and highlands as we walked out the pier to the tender boats.
Those tenders could hold 242 people!
Before long, we pulled anchor, and here we are headed back to the Pacific Ocean.
It was easy to go up the elevators to 16, walk right out the back door, and relax with beers and watch the shoreline go by on a perfect afternoon.
The shoreline up the coast was pretty dramatic in places. This was where that lighthouse would have been.
Added beauty!
The great scenery kept right on going until we finally decided to get dinner and see the show.
My final photo before heading inside. What a great day!
The show that night was the ship's cast doing a Motown-themed Sweet Soul Music.
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