Day 16 – Tuesday 14 April

Last night I was woken by a heavy hail storm a number of times. This morning we woke to find snow on the car windscreen, on the motel roof & a heavy covering on all the hills surrounding Akaroa. It was cold as we rugged up to walk the short distance to L’Escargot Rouge for breakfast. We went for a short walk around this part of town, noting the French flag flying on the foreshore, the French street names, a little bit of retail therapy. To escape the cold & the rain we went into a shop “Wool Shed” where we brought his & hers merino possum jumpers, which we haven’t taken off at all. As it was still showering hail we went then for a slightly longer drive along the harbour shore past the old Akaroa Headland lighthouse. The temperature at midday was 6C degrees. For lunch we enjoyed the comfort of a roaring fire & shared a nice pizza at the restaurant closest to our motel, the L’Hotel.

Our walk after lunch first took us out along the Akaroa wharf, (Rain, shine or hail, no stopping us two from seeing what there is to see at Akaroa) not for the faint hearted with the very strong wind threatening to blow us off the wharf, though the whitecaps in the harbour buffeting the boats looked good. From the wharf we got a glimpse of blue sky occasionally & could see the next hail shower as it blasted across the harbour. We ventured further to the older French part of town during a break in the hail showers & looked at some of the older original buildings of the old settlement. We were walking into the teeth of the strong cold wind on the way back to the motel & thankfully the hail showers didn’t start again until we reached the comparative shelter of the shopping precinct close to the motel. A bracing healthy walk, though the warmth of the motel was very welcoming. We couldn’t resist the log fire so dinner was again at L’Hotel.