I realized that, in spite of yesterday’s post title, yesterday’s musings were mostly about getting to Akaroa, and meanderings about memories of past NZ trips. Lemme tell you a little about what we’ve been actually doing in Akaroa.

Oh wait – but first a bit more background.

I first heard of Akaroa as “that place folks go to decompress after a hard season on the Ice.” After four or six or ten months of nothing but sky and ice, Akaroa was that impossibly verdant, warm little waterside retreat. For some reason I can’t remember, it also had a distinctly French cut to its jib – French flags on the poles, street names all “Rue” this and “Avenue de la” that. More “Maison…” restaurants than you’d expect. “Le Mini Golf.” I know I knew why once, and know I could look it up again. But for now I’m just going to go with the story that there was a shipwreck at some point, and the passengers decided that here was as good or better than where they were headed.

Anyhow, based on this reputation, I spent a couple of blissfully rambling days there when I redeployed back in 2011. And, as I said, went back with Devon and the kids when they came down.

This time, you’ll recall, we arrived to wind and rain. Lots of rain. Cold rain. It’s the northern hemisphere moral equivalent of late July here, so folks in town seemed rather nonplussed. Shops were closed, and I found the keepers of those that were open standing at their doors, shaking their heads in wonder. But the forecast was for everything to change by noon, so we bided our time in our own ways: Devon puttering in the room while I dodged cloudbursts exploring the (mostly awning protected) little stretch of what passes as “downtown.”

Right on what-passes-for-time here, around 1:00, the clouds gave one last definitive dump, and cleared away into a startlingly blue summer sky. So off we went (which in Akaroa means “up”) and huffed our way up the startlingly steep footpath through the local incarnation of Stanley Park.

Turns out? We’re kinda old and out of shape. Made it to the top of the park, barely a fingernail up from the sea relative to the ridge of the old caldera, sat on the bench there and decided we were done.

But on the way back we had to stop at the Giant’s House.

What’s the Giant’s House? We weren’t quite sure, either. You know how there are so many towns that have their equivalent of Wall Drug? A place you’ve got to see, just because it’s the place people go to see when they visit that town? You know – “World’s Largest Corn Dog,” or the like? Well, apparently Akaroa’s main draw (aside from the gorgeous, lush hill walks and quaint French stylings) is something I’d never heard of before: The Giant’s House. Pitched as a whimsical sculpture garden surrounding a twee little Victorian up on the hill.

And was it all that? Yeah, it was. Two thumbs up, would stroll again. Big rambling multilevel, oh heck, I’ll call it a labrynth, of impossibly imaginative glass, tile, concrete and who-knows-what-else sculpture. Just some pics:

So that was yesterday.

Today was a jaunt up to Christchurch to visit a few old haunts and create a few new ones. Botanical garden, Cashiel St, pay homage to the old cathedral and the decommissioned shell of Dux Deluxe (the canonical place for folks heading to/coming off the Ice to meet and drink back in the pre-quake days.) Oh, and buskers! The serendipometer was humming nicely, and we turned out to have overlapped with the Christchurch International Busker Festival. Street performers with intriguing names like “MulletMan and MIM,” “Ruby Rubberlegs” and “The Dangerous Darlings” putting it out and passing the hat at half a dozen locations around the city. What’s not to like?

Tonight? Northbound, and then into the interior. I’ll keep you posted, as ever.