Releasing Little Blue Penguins into the Wild

The wild ride of the Banks Peninsula

In the late afternoon, we meet our guide, Ben, at the Pohatu Penguins Akaroa town base. From there, we’re hopping in the van with our fellow tour-goers to discover some of the landforms and wildlife of the Banks Peninsula.

The first thing we discover about the Banks Peninsula is that there are a lot of steep and narrow gravel roads. The places we are going to today, around the Pohatu Reserve and Tutakakahikura Scenic Reserve, are much better attempted in a 4×4. As we have discovered in most places in New Zealand, getting to the most stunning of places is never the easiest.

Akaroa: A History

The steady speed of negotiating these roads, and revealing glorious views of Akaroa township, allows Ben to talk about how Akaroa came to be. He talks about the early Maori, their rituals, their history. Then the arrival of the French who wanted to colonise the South Island via Akaroa, only to be beaten by two weeks by the Goddamn English. Out of stubbornness, or more like fatigue from the journey Down Under, the French decided to stay in Akaroa anyway, giving it it’s Frenchy feel the town is still proud to hold today.

And how can you resist photo stops when there are views like this?

Can we offer you another photo stop?

The drive is broken up with plenty of photo stops, and we mean PLENTY! We might all be laughing when we stop for the third time to another sensational view over the land and coastline, but we’re still not afraid to take our cameras out and snap up this scenery! Finally, we get to nurture our guilty pleasure of parking up every five minutes to take a photo. (Usually, we talk ourselves out of it, or else we would never get anywhere).

Akaroa Head Scenic Reserve

Once Akaroa is out of sight, we are driving toward some headlands overlooking a marine reserve. It’s like a national park in the water, where fishing is prohibited allowing for growth of an ecosystem which explains why the waters here in Akaroa are a playground for dolphins and is the home to New Zealand’s largest mainland little blue penguin colony.

Looking through the Spyglass

A short walk to the remains of the Akaroa Lighthouse (which has now been moved to just outside the Akaroa township for everyone to see), brings us on top of some rugged coastline with various inlets. One of these headlands is called The Spyglass due to the hole going right through the rock to reveal the ocean on the other side.
Ben is on bird watch with the binoculars, passing the binoculars round once he’s seen seabirds like a petrel or tern. We even spot three or four Hector’s dolphins rising and falling at the surface of the water.