Kia Ora, Aotearoa: Akaroa deja vu

I hear they weave their own seat covers

Having to kill some time before arriving at Fairlie for my big fishing adventure, we decided to head over for a second visit to Akaroa (click here for details of our last trip). But first we needed to head into CHC for supplies. I needed to get a fishing license and some wee bugs.

We didn't have the stomach to go into the CBD. We prefer to remember it the way it was. There was enough visible damage just in the area of "The Complete Angler", including that store as well. Last time we were at that store, someone had just driven a car through the wall. This time they were operating out of a big garage, having lost their original location to the earthquake. I guess "location, location, location" isn't a good thing here.

After leaving town we decided to stop at an aviation museum. Nothing too exciting to look at.

Future NZ Top Guns

On our way to Akaroa we decided to stop for our first (of many) fish and chips stops. We have a custom. After fish and chips we have to stop at Tip Top ice cream, which is a chain with hundreds of outlets.

The fish and chips here are served Brit style; bundled in newsprint. The way it works is they will have several different kinds of fish to choose from. Then you order the chips on the side. We learned last time to order about half of the smallest portion of chips. This still gives us the meal portion and the seagull portion. We also learned last time that a "piece" of fish is the entire fillet; as in an entire half a fish. The final fish and chips lesson we learned is to go to the grocery and buy your own tartar sauce and ketchup since they charge $2.50 for one of those little plastic "to-go" cups. This is the "one piece fish and half the smallest chip" order.

Not sure if it's Jaquelin's or Caroline's

The last time we went to Akaroa we only made an afternoon of it. This time we stayed for two nights. Cynthia's doing this Boeing health thing where she packs a pedometer everywhere with her, and if she gets 1 million steps she wins a toothbrush or something. We measured her stride to be 24". So that means she only has to walk 379 miles. My question is why do I have to go with her? My stride is 32" so I have to walk 502 miles for her 379. Hardly seems fair.

We checked into a nice little place about a block from the beach and had a look around.

View from our patio looking north

View from our patio looking south

The place is just beautiful. It's like everyone has built their home into the garden rather than the other way around!

While continuing on our million mile march we passed an old woman working on her garden. She said hello and we got to talking. Cynthia asked her about some flower or other and she showed us all around her garden. She asked where we were from. When we told her we were from the States, she said "oh, there are lots of Americans around here." "Did you ever hear of a young man named Jimi Hendrix? Well his manager lives right here behind me. He's got the cancer you know so he's in the States getting fixed up. He's letting a family from Christchurch live here because their house was destroyed by the earthquake".

Concerning earthquakes, Akaroa is about an hour drive from CHC but didn't entirely escape the effects. There were signs of damage here as well; some subtle, some not so much. This part is a little creepy.

Akaroa has a great monument to her fallen soldiers in the middle of town. We took pictures of it last time we were here. The memorial suffered significant damage as a result of the earthquake and was fenced off. A couple of her flying buttresses had crumbled and other damage was apparent. The interesting thing was that there were white doves perched on it whenever we looked, and we never saw them anywhere else.

Before the earthquake

They have a lot of cemeteries around; one for the Anglicans, one for the French and one for the Roman Catholics and what they referred to as The Dissenters. We took a walk heading for a lighthouse and found the trail head to the Anglican cemetery.

I don't know if it's bad form or not, but I felt a bit disrespectful taking pictures of stranger's graves. However, I'm sure I'll get over it. May take years of therapy, but in the end I will prevail.

The earthquake had toppled several grave stones. It made me a little sad that there was no one to set them right again, but I did take some smug satisfaction in the fact that most of the fallen markers were for those who had built mighty monuments to their own greatness.

These guys probably didn't even sleep in the same bed, yet being side by side for eternity was no problem

From the "Dissenters' bone yard

We had come from the back end of the graveyard through the woods, and it seemed that the graves went further back in time as we went towards the road. It was interesting to note how many children were buried here. It must have been a tough life back then. Fortunately Obamacare will make sure that nothing like that ever happens again.

Many of the oldest markers were off in the weeds

For me, the saddest one of all

All of this morose thinking did give me a fantastic idea for an invention! I call it the iStone. A weather-proof, solar-powered LCD flat screen monitor that would have all kinds of keen features. It could have pictures of the dearly departed (best side of course) and a fully interactive user interface where one could pull up the life story of the occupant, highlights of the funeral service, and an .mp3 capable sound system. It would even have a feature where the surviving relatives could go online and update the deceased's Deadbook page.

There was also a French cemetery. However, it only consisted of one tall monument that said (in effect) "There are a bunch of dead French people buried around here, but we don't really know who all of them were, so we put up this generic rock."

Ok, so now for some more cheery stuff. A really cool aspect of New Zealand life is that they have a government that sometimes listens to (and complies with) the citizen's wishes: