Akaroa, the bay, and the Coomb Farm

We drove south from Christchurch to Akaroa on Friday evening into the beautiful scenery of the volcanic mountain peninsula. This area was formed from lava flows from a volcano which when it erupted, left a rim of mountains.Then as one part of the rim collapsed, the Pacific Ocean rushed in to fill the Akaroa Bay. 

We spent the night at the Croomb Farm just off Takamatua Road. This is a family farm breeding beef cattle and maintaining 1500 sheep for both meat and wool.  The farm house there was built in the early 1900s.  We had a beautiful room and had breakfast in the cozy kitchen before the fire. 

 See how tiny I look next to this eucalyptus tree - we could smell the woodsy fragrance from its leaves. 

The vegetation on our morning drive was very unusual as the drive seemed like we were in the mountains with lots of huge pines, eucalyptus, and mountain laurel, but there were also  nīkau palms growing along the bay shore.  The nīkau palm is the only palm species endemic to New Zealand. There was a huge eucalyptus tree at the farm. 

There is a historical light house in Akaroa, originally built in 1880, with a light 270 feet above sea level that can be seen from 23 miles out to sea.  We met a couple of young men from Georgia visiting the lighthouse - it really is a small world. 

The bay is an anchorage for the Akaroa Yacht Club. There isn't really a marina here,

probably because there is such a large shift of tide. When the tide is low, the water shows a long sandy bottom with a vertical drop over over 10 feet.  That makes it difficult to manage the dockage of boats.

We saw some beautiful blue spiky flowers with unique gray-green leaves along the shore line - each of these spikes was over a foot tall.