Akaroa and the Banks Peninsula

We headed south from Christchurch to Akeroa on the banks Peninsula.  We stopped at a reststop on Franklin Lake

 Where we saw black swans (introduced from Australia), great crested grebes and mallards.

We turned off the main highway onto narrow windy roads that looked down onto sheep pasture.  It was really beautiful and really stressful for our first day of driving on New Zealand roads.  The van is rather underpowered so we had a train of vehicles behind us.

Eventually we reached our destination, Akaroa harbour, and pulled into one of the last free parking spots where we would spend the night.  We checked out the busy main street, walked the pier

And saw these birds:

White-faced heron

One of a number of Cormorant species

The very pretty silver gull with a very not-pretty hoarse seagull call

After supper we took the trail to Children's Bay (10 minutes, it said).

When we got there there was a loop trail up into the hills so we checked that out.  

We had great views back to the town from here

And the whole trail was very birdy.  We saw the New Zealand pigeon (lifer).

Bird of the Day!

We were commenting how noisy the cicadas were and Leo spotted one.

The fantails were very outgoing and flashed their tails at us.

We spotted this guy running around a field nowhere near a swamp.

Australasian swamphen

Eventually we got back down to Children's Bay only to find that the tide was in, cutting off our return. So we had to climb back up the hill and retrace our steps. Some 10 minute evening walk!