Woke late in Akaroa (8am) had breakfast, cleaned the camper and updated diaries etc before heading down to the town to buy some more groceries. Easily the steepest hill we have been down was from the camp to the town at least a 1 in 4 if I'm not mistaken.

At 10:30 we checked in at the Black Cat harbour cruise office and paid $52 a head for the trip around the harbour.

We headed out at 11 for our 2 hour trip the scenery was if anything better than yesterday as the haze had lifted and you could see much further. According to the tour guide/captain Akaroa harbour is formed in the crater of an extinct volcano where one side of the crater has fallen off and allowed the ocean to enter, creating a protected harbour (couldn't have planned it better myself).

After about 30 min's close to the to the entrance of the harbour the Hectors dolphins were spotted and they put on a real performance for us in pods of 4-6 they were heading in at speed surfacing and diving under the boat. The Hectors Dolphin is much smaller than the average Dolphin and is a species verging on extinction, but now being conserved.

Then a course was set out of the harbour into the Pacific Ocean and a short distance up the coast to some more sites of interest,in particular an area where the cliff has eroded exposing the pipe from one of the volcanoes. On the way back some fur seals were spotted on the bank and we went to take a look.

The two hours went very quickly and it was well worth the cost. We bought lunch from the bakery and at 2pm reluctantly headed out of Akaroa setting a course for the town of Geraldine.

We arrived in Geraldine at 4:30 having past through several small towns but not really worth stopping at, on our so very brief tour.

Had bacon tomatoes and onion sausages for tea bought from the excellent Akaroa butchers.