Lying around 50km to the south east of the city, the peninsula is essentially a massive crater that was created as the result of a couple of volcanic eruptions many, many years ago. If I'm learning nothing else out here, it's that the two things New Zealand do really well are big fucking hills and badass natural disasters.
We stopped off for lunch in the Hilltop Pub. Because I am a stupid, I only took a photo of the boring buildingy bit and neglected to capture for posterity the view from the garden, which consisted of 1) the distant shimmery wet bit of the Banks Peninsula surrounded by big craggy hills, 2) a sheep munching away at the grass just the other side of the fence, and 3) a splendid jerk chicken burger and a jug of beer to wash it down with. There was also a surprising number of vintage motorcycles parked outside; I completely failed to capture these too.
And then on to Akaroa. 160 years ago Akaroa was a French settlement, and a lot of the people living there now are direct descendants - there were more than a few tricolores fluttering in the breeze, and lots of the streets are called Rue De something or other. It was all terribly quaint, and with all the surrounding hills it felt like we were in the middle of a huge crater. Because we literally were.
The main road around the peninsula is called Summit Road, and runs pretty much along the crest of the hills. The best views from Summit Road were of the road itself as we drove along it; but what with the sheer drops and the lack of barriers and the fucked front shocks lending DeathCar2000's steering the kind of vagueness that really focuses a chaps mind, I thought it best not to try to take any photos en route. I think you can Street View most of it anyway. Meanwhile, there were plenty of other spots along the way to stop and waste more cameraphone battery, including Le Bons Bay; a nice little spot which, as far as I can tell, has absolutely nothing to do with the frontman of Duran Duran.
The following day I would have gone to a classic motorsport shenanigan at the local raceway, but it turns out that I'm too stupid to use a calendar. So instead we stayed at home and didn't go anywhere; which actually made for quite a pleasant change. I used the time to finish off painting some toys...
A mob of five lootaz. Mobz of five are great because you can fit the whole unit under a single blast template, and when they all die in one go it saves a lot of going back and forth between the table and the figure case.
Units of five; efficient.
Sinister foreign candy this week took the form of Pascall's Pineapple Lumps.
The packet proudly proclaims the contents to be "artificial flavoured" - and I can confirm this to be the case. It was like eating dense slabs of vaguely pineappley yellow rubber. Not the worst thing I've eaten since I got here, but that's mainly because I've eaten a Pinky and a Reel Rainbow Big Fish.
No comments:
Post a Comment