VictoriaFebruary 17
A two hour boat tour of the Banks Peninsula with Black Cat Cruises started off our day. We saw more Hector dolphins, but not nearly as many as we did in the Sounds or Kaikōura. Still no whales, but we did see amazing scenery.
After our cruise, we strolled through the small town, dodged the cruise ship passengers, and had a quick lunch.
Since we are definitely consuming more calories than we are burning, we decided to go for a walk this afternoon. We headed in the direction of the six-sided wooden Akaroa lighthouse. While we were there, we spotted some cool birds on the rocky shore. The most interesting was the black oystercatcher (aka red bills), which are endemic to NZ.
The Fijian chefs at Mandala cooked us an excellent goodbye dinner. Pani puri with mint water, shrimp dumplings, roti and pistachio crusted blue Wahoo fish was a feast! Warm caramelized apple samosas with salted caramel ice cream was a delicious end to the meal. Now you know why we need to do more walking.
Tomorrow we head to Tekapo, our longest drive of the trip so far (4 hours). We’ll be making a bunch of stops along the way to break up the trip and get a rest from the winding roads.
Love the blog! Possible to do this trip and not enjoy seafood?? Miss you guys.
Ha ha yes there’s lots of beef and lamb, you’d be fine.