Kiwis and Fairy Bread

22 and 23 December 2023

The words of this Jackson Brown tune (the theme of my 1987 tour of Europe with childhood friend Sue) came to me often as we took two days to make our way to our Christmas destination, Akaroa.

An hours drive out of Marahua and the scenery changed again. Suddenly it looked like we were in the American Old West. A wide, shallow, rambling river with occasional homesteads and cattle ranches in a valley between blonde hills. We stopped in a one horse town called Muriston, had a coffee, and explored the four shops. We loved the second hand shop, where a little girl told me she was looking for a good Top Santa Gift (like White Elephant I think). Mike looked through a classic selection of 1970’s record albums.

We bought lots of fun stuff at the General Store and got a bit of a history lesson from the clerk. Muriston was indeed a gold panning town. Now, being located halfway between Nelson and Christchurch, it’s economy is mostly based on it being a “Tea and Pee stop”. You get the meaning, I am sure. And that was exactly why we had visited too!

The landscape of Old West gradually turned into plantations of hops and grapes. Beer or wine: take your pick.

We entered Lewis Pass and lunched at the head of a trail where we got a view of our first snow capped peaks!

Camped for the night at Woodend Beach, a decades old holiday park that looks like at one time long past, it may have been a children’s zoo. The roaming pigs and partridges seemed to like it, as did the kids having fun in a playground that hadn’t been updated since about 1972 (remember steel monkey bars and Jungle Gyms? Then you get the idea). I was feeling tired from our Able Tasman adventure, so settled into Miranda with a novel and some Fairy Bread. Mike had a nice walk on the nearby beach.

An early start in the morning lead us to more curving roads on our approach to Akaroa. Mike skillfully drove the extremely narrow dirt track onto the Ōnawe Peninsula and we went for a climb to the end. Unique yellow and orange rock formations that looked like creatures out of the Dark Crystal gave way to meadows and Manuka trees. The view was, I know I keep saying this, amazing.

And so we arrive in Akaroa. The classy TOP 10 Holiday Park overlooks a cute little town. They gave us a great space with fantastic view. This is a place to relax, And we are enjoying doing so.