Photos

Akaroa - a small town south of Christchurch, actually an early French colony, before the English got the upper hand on NZ. I went there with some friends to do one of NZ's famous tourist attractions, swimming with dolphins, but when we got there, the boat manager told us that the sea swell (out where the dolphins were) was too high, so we did a hillwalk instead. Apart from the dolphins, some nice streetside cafes, and walking the hills, there's really not much about this town, but it's a lovely place anyway. According to a local we spoke to, the hills used to be heavily forested, but the early settlers (1840 and onward) cut the trees to make room for farmland, and the grazing sheep did the rest, I guess. The photo was taken from a hill on the south side of town. This is actually an excerpt from a larger stitched panorama, which I will post later.