Amy and Brian's World Tour: Akaroa, NZ

Let’s just say, today did not go as planned. We arrived in Akaroa, New Zealand at 7am this morning. We got up and went to breakfast then went to the theatre on board to wait for a tender boat to take us ashore. We were in the theatre by 8am however did not get to shore until a little after 9am. (The cruise ship’s tender service in this port was not very good and I think they could have done better. They only had three tender boats operating and it was a 20 minute commute to shore which made for a long wait for a tender boat).

We were supposed to be ashore by 9am for a Pohatu sea kayaking safari tour. Once again I have been communicating with this company for months about this tour. Two days ago, she emailed me to confirm everything was as planned for today and we would have good kayaking conditions.

When we arrived to the dock, it was difficult for us to find her. This was because she had a sign that said penguin nature tour - Pohatu. We were not going on a penguin tour. We were to go kayaking. After a few minutes, I realized that she was from the same company. We talked to her and she knew me from all the emails, but she said we cannot go kayaking today. We can do on a bushwalk (hiking) instead. What!?! We are dressed for kayaking (I’m in flip flops, water pants and water long sleeve shirt with my swimsuit under everything. Brian is in swim trunks and t-shirt). This is not what we had in mind.

Then she started recruiting other people for the brushwalking tour (which conveniently cost more than kayaking). We did not like how this was going. It seemed like she was using a bait and switch technique to get us to go on this tour. She seemed completely unprepared to offer any type of kayaking. The harbour was crystal smooth and the waters on the way in were noticeable calm, so it did not make sense as to why we could not kayak. She kept downplaying the possibility of kayaking. Disturbed by the experience, we decided not to do any tour with her. We were a little bummed that we could not kayak, but at least we did it yesterday.

Guess what we ended up doing? A biking tour. (Carol, I really should have learned from Cape Cod not to bike but now I am doing it two days in a row). 12km yesterday and 18km planned today. We went on a biking tour with On2Wheels. It was great (except that I was a little tired of biking). We had to make a pit stop at a store to buy me shorts since I was wearing pants for our kayaking tour and it was warm today in the 70s (the cruise ship was tendered 20 minutes from shore so we could not get back on to get my own shorts). We biked 18km this morning however it was mostly downhill although there were a few up hill stretches that were a bit of a challenge. It was very scenic. We saw an alpaca on the way down as well as fields of bassica which they grow to feed the sheep.

They drove us to the top of a mountain and then biked down it. We biked with another nice couple from Holland. They were avid bikers. My butt was sore from yesterday. Now it is really sore! The bikes seats are not very comfortable. At the end of the mountain, we ended at a beautiful beach. We had some wine and cheese at the beach. We still have not really acquired a taste for wine, but we at least tried. We are still not fans.

It was a lot of fun and we would recommend it to anyone that wants to bike in Akaroa. It is very scenic and the weather was sunny and 70 degrees. (Sorry for everyone back home in the blizzard – we saw clips from Cleveland on CNN today and in the abridged USA Times newspaper we get onboard featured a story from Cleveland on all of the snow and airport delays earlier in the week).

We walked around Akaroa for a while. Then we saw a jet boat ride with harbour tour. We decided we needed an adrenaline rush so we booked it. It was a 50 minute jet boat ride around the harbour. We went into sea caves (once again we were saddened by getting to kayak them). It was fun. When the driver would spin the boat 360 degrees, it was really fun.