New Zealand - Banks Peninsula

Banks Peninsula was yet another thing Captain Cook named in 1769.  This time after his ship's botanist, Joseph Banks

They didn't harbour his and mistakenly thought it was an island.  This coastal lake is the bigger was here.  It's made from the results of 2 volcanic explosions and you can drive up and round the crater rim, giving views of the whole peninsular

Looking across the other side, Okains Bay can be seen

It's to the right of Christchurch and shaped like a circle, looking like a cog with the intruding bays

One of the original villages is Akaroa, which is in a French influenced area

A frenchman dubiously paid the Maori for this peninsula and went off to France to settle his affairs, pick up some families and return here

The British heard and moored a warship off the coast and put up flags declaring it British, but the French familes still settled here, just didn't own it

It has Rues, instead of Streets and is a very pretty place

Further up the road, along the same lake is Duvauchelle, where we stopped at a campsite on an old cricket pitch with an immaculet lawn.  The view was okay too!

Another day we stayed in Okains Bay, where the beaches were deserted.  It may have had something to do with it being freezing

We walked along the old wharf

Then found a proper tramp around the peninsular's fields.  Sheep are very common here still, but numbers have been dwindling since the last century, with wool trading not being as profitable as it once was and it's therefore not New Zealand's biggest export.  The last 20 years has seen dairy cows double and is now the largest export for New Zealand

This little bay was reserved for the sheep alone

After a 2 hour tramp, I'm trying to convince Paul that the best view of the area is just over the next hill, which I'd been saying for the last hour

The current view we had was pretty good though, so we decided to turn round then

And our hotel view was a lovely wooded scene too