Happy Birthday to the Queen

When I was still in the states coming off a 6-weekend-in-a-row travel streak, Cam told me we had a public holiday for the Queens birthday coming up. My first reaction was "3 days off. I'm sleeping the whole time." My second reaction was, "Why are we celebrating the Queen's birthday?" It's rather confusing seeing as 1. It's not the Queens birthday, 2. We don't live in England, and 3. People who do live in England don't get a day off for the Queen's birthday. At any rate, a holiday is a holiday and despite my initial reaction, we gladly took a little trip to celebrate. Looking back on the weekend, if I had to use one word to describe it, it would be.... lovely :)

For the three day weekend, Cam and I decided to spend one night in Akaroa, a little town on the Banks Peninsula. I've been to Akaroa twice before - once on my first Saturday in New Zealand, and once as a brief stop after a hike. I hadn't done much either time, and kind of wrote it off as a pretty place to drive to and enjoy a meal at a cafe, but not that much more. Cam did some research and came up with a whole slew of ideas of things to do in Akaroa, so we thought it would be nice to spend a couple days there exploring.

Akaroa in October 2014 - Cloudy but still beautiful.

We spent Saturday in Christchurch, and on Sunday afternoon, we drove out to Akaroa to begin our adventure. The weather was stunning and the views going over to Akaroa were nicer than I had ever seen them before.

Perfect Day

It was only Cam's second time in Akaroa so I was really happy that we got really lucky with the weather. We got to Akaroa just in time to have a New Zealand Sauvingon Blanc and a cheese plate at my favorite little outdoor cafe (the same one I went to in October) and take in the winter warmth (14 degrees C!).

Cheese Plate for Two Please

Next stop on Cam's itinerary was a trip to the Giant's House -- named by a little girl looking up at it who said it was so big it must belong to a giant.

House behind us! Sun still shining :)

Contrary to that idea, it's owned and lived in by an (assumingly) whimsical lady who has devoted her life as an artist to maintaining the grounds and creating an entire garden of mosaic sculptures. The sculptures are huge! Often over six feet tall. Here are some of our favorites:

The Prince and Princess of Akaroa!

Too Sunny!

Since the sun was going down, it was time to go find our accommodation -- and you'll never guess what that accommodation was. To keep things interesting, we rented.... a treehouse! The treehouse was part of a series of private huts on the hills over Akaroa.

En Route to the Tree House!

The treehouse had a main room/bedroom - with a potbelly stove and an electric blanket for keeping warm! - and a balcony -  complete with a daybed for some afternoon cuddles.

View from the day bed

Basically, it was perfect and designed for peace and serenity. We drove in to town for a special dinner at The Little Bistro and then retired to our treehouse for stargazing and the best sleep either of us have had in a looong time.

Cozy by the fire

One more perk of our humble abode? A breakfast made just for us in the main hut in the morning.

Main Hut for Breakfast

The main hut was eccentric to say the least-- with random odds and ends all over the place. Our hostess showed us her newest artifact -- a brass horn from an old car -- then told us to find something to read while she made breakfast and left us to find a National Geographic magazine from 1980 (heaven for Cam!).

We said goodbye to our treehouse around noon and went in search of a penguin colony about 20 minutes past Akaroa on the Peninsula. We drove up a steep gravel road, while constantly wondering if my rental toyota corrolla would make it.

High up above Akaroa Harbour

Cam reassured me that if we got stuck a friendly farmer would help us out -- Thanks, Cam. We made it most of the way to the penguin colony when the road got really steep and our ability to get back out of it in the corrolla became more and more in question. We ended up turning around and taking a less steep route down the hill. (which unfortunately wouldn't take us to any penguins)

This is where things got interesting. We were driving down the road, through a farm (which apparently was not private properly) when all of sudden we were stopped by 5 giant BULLS on the road. Cam assured me they were most likely domesticated but that if they decided to charge us they would do serious damage to the car (and me - Cam would be fine). Thanks again, Cam.

You may not proceed.

Fortunately, these bulls were used to being herded so we just drove (read Cam drove while I screamed) slowly at them until they decided to run in the direction we were going.

"Take a picture of this! You're herding bulls!" - Cam

Occasionally they would turn around and look at us, or two of them would fight with eachother, but eventually we did make it to the end of the road and they found a far away patch of grass to graze.

Coming to find his friends

The end of the road proved to be not that exciting (and I just wanted to get away from the bulls), so we got in the car and headed back up.

There was just one more thing on Cam's list of things to do. He had heard about an interesting set of trails centered around a historic cemetery that had separate regions for the "roman catholic cemetery" and the "dissenters cemetery". I was a dragging my feet a bit due to being mentally exhausted after fearing death-by-bull-charge for so long, but the toyota corolla was smelling a little smoky from braking down the mountain for the same amount of time, so the corolla won and we let it rest while we walked around the trails. Surprisingly enough, this ended up being one of the best parts of the trip. We found an opening in the woods that took us out to the roots of a giant tree that had previously been cut down. The perfect place to sit down and take in day 2 of winter warmth.

My Happy Place

It was at this moment that I decided I loved Akaroa. It's so much more than a place you drive to for a cute cafe and a walk around -- it was stunningly beautiful and had given us the relaxing getaway from Christchurch that we were looking for. And the best part was once we got back in the car we were only 90 minutes from home :)

Except for a quick stop at our favourite pizza place (Cassels and Sons at the Tannery)

Happy Birthday to the Queen and thank you Cammy for the wonderful weekend in Akaroa. Another great trip in the books!