There are 1100 guests on the ship. Because this is the low season, there are fewer than 800 residents in Akaroa. This is a vacation town without a lot to see or do during the fall. Danita and I got an excursion to go to Christchurch. It was a half hour ride in the tender and another hour and a half on the bus. The bus ride was mostly over narrow mountain roads. But what beautiful countryside. I took this pic standing about 2 inches away from a fence that was both electrified and had barbed wire. It wouldn’t be a good place to loose your footing.

Along the ride, Danita noticed these boat sheds that reminded us of Jean and Leo’s boat shanty on Lake Erie.

Christchurch was devastated by major earthquakes in 2010 and 2011. The had a lot of old historic buildings built with stone or brick. Virtually all of them were destroyed. They have done an incredible job of rebuilding. One of their problems is that the downtown area was closed, with 24 hour military patrols, while buildings were being demolished. Businesses couldn’t wait, and built new facilities outside of town. Now that the damage is mostly repaired, the town is open but businesses are largely happy staying outside the downtown area. Most of the new construction is good, but a few organizations built temporary structures that are still being used. The most famous of these is the cardboard church. You can see round rafters holding the roof up. These rafters are made out of cardboard tubes with cement poured in the center.

We saw an excellent botanical garden, and had a wonderful lunch / wine tasting. The tender ride back to the ship splashed around quite a bit. We saw the pilot ship. It was running beside us at a pretty good speed. They were bouncing around on a roller coaster that never ends.

That’s it for today. I hope this finds everybody doing well.