Akaroa, South Island, NZ

Akaroa is a small town on the Banks Peninsula in the Canterbury region of the South Island, NZ. While we were staying in Christchurch we took a tour to this pretty town. It is around 84km from Christchurch. This town is the only French settlement in the whole of New Zealand and the French influence is still seen in the town and in the place names.

While we were there we did a dolphin boat trip, the tour was extremely good and we found out lots of information about the town and surrounding area. The landscape was quite amazing and we saw lots of birds and seals too. Although the main draw of the tour was to see Hector´s dolphins, as with any type of tour like this you cannot be guaranteed to see any wildlife. So everyone was really hoping these small dolphins would come up to say hello.

Well we need not have worried as they were feeling rather playful and were swimming in the front of the boat for at least 5 mins if not longer. Also we saw maybe 7 or 8 of them too. These dolphins are one of the smallest kinds and are endemic to some costal areas in New Zealand.

Once back to the town we wondered around, stopped for a drink and looked in the shops and got some touristy things.

It is a pleasant day trip from Christchurch and as we were there during winter it was not that busy. In the summer months it is stop for cruise ships so the town will get very busy.

Last weekend turned into a non existent one as Alessio was ill from Thursday evening and still is a little. He had fever and breathing problems which warranted a trip to the hospital for a check. He is much better but sadly could not go on this school ski camp.

This weekend I am going to Barcelona, not with Alessio this time but with a friend and my father. And of course we will be going to see FC Barcelona play, this goes without saying with my trips to the city.

Hope you all have a great weekend

Visiting First World War Sites in Flanders, Belgium

Langemark German Cemetery

Tyne Cot Cemetery

Passchendaele 1917 Museum

Black Watch Memorial

Christmas Truce Memorial

In October 2017 along with Alessio and my father we spent a week in Belgium. One of the trips we did was a tour of First World War battlefields. We got picked up from our hotel in Bruges and along with 6 or 7 more people we started our tour.

I can`t remember all the sites we visited but the main ones I do! There were many highlights but seeing Tyne Cot was one of them. Tyne Cot Commonwealth War Graves Cemetery and Memorial to the Missing is a Commonwealth War Graves Commission burial ground for the dead of First World War in the Ypres Salient on the Western Front. It was a very moving experience walking around and looking at the gravestones and reading the names of the men and seeing their ages too. It is quite astounding to think there are just under 12,000 men buried here. The memorial has the names of nearly 34,000 men missing with no known burial. This is the largest Commonwealth forces cemetery for any war!

We also visited Langemark German Military Cemetery, it is one of only four First World War cemeteries in the Flanders region and it has over 44,000 men buried.

We also went to the Memorial Museum Passchendaele 1917, this was very informative and extremely interesting. You find out about the five battles of Ypres, including the battle of Passchendaele, all of them quite horrific! At the end there is reconstruction of the dugouts and trenches which Alessio found quite interesing!

We visited numerous other memorial sites such the Black Watch Memorial, for Americans soliders, memorial for the Christmas Truce football match, Spranbroekmolen Mine Crater, known as the Pool of Peace.

Also we visited the town of Ypres, there we visited the In Flanders Field museum and the Menin Gate. I already did a post about these places a good while ago.

I would definitely suggest doing a tour to see these places, now that it has passed the 100 year mark it is important to remember what happened and that the younger generation continues does not forget!

Happy weekend folks!

Animals, New Zealand

Sealion

Yellow eyed penguins

Seals

Many seals

huskies

Valais sheep

Pukeko

Our trip to New Zealand in July and August last year was amazing in everyway,  but we were extremely lucky to see some wildlife too.

We went on two wildlife trips, the first was on the Otago Peninsula. We saw Yellow Eyed penguins, we got there to see them coming out of the sea and they climbing up a cliff back to their burrows/homes. Then some decided to go back to the sea for a short while.  We also saw sealions, there were 3 of them on the beach having a good old play fight. But there were many more hidden in the dunes.  It was quite an amazing experience.

The second trip was to Akaroa, where we went on a boat trip and saw many, many Hector`s dolphins. These are the smallest in the world and they were just so keen to swim in front of the boat. We were so lucky.

We also went to see Blue penguins which are the smallest in world. We were in Oamaru and they offer the chance to see the little penguins returning to their burrow. They start returning around 6pm and it is then dark and they just waddle their way on the beach and up to the grassy area. It was not allowed to take photos, but it was really amazing to see.

Alessio was very happy to see huskies at the International Antarctic Centre and then on our last day we went to Willowbank Animal Reserve. There Alessio got to feed some lemurs, they sat on his shoulders and he was so calm feeding them. We also saw some pukeko, native bird to NZ and finally we saw a kiwi too. It was in the night area, there should have been 5 but I guess they were hiding.

I guess the only disappointment was that we did not see any whales, while we were in Auckland we did a boat trip. The day before there had been blue whales in the area and had been spotted by the boat. That would have been so amazing.