Akaroa in One Day: Volcano, France, and Hector's Dolphins

Your day begins where the city began: at Cathedral Square, at the walls of Christchurch's Anglican Cathedral — the heart of the garden city since its founding. From here, your guide takes you on a journey across the Canterbury Plains to a French town at the bottom of a volcano. If you're staying at a hotel within 10 km of the city center, we'll pick you up right from the entrance — just provide the address when booking.

The highest point of SH75 route (≈476 m), where the view of the entire Akaroa Harbour opens up for the first time — a completely flooded volcanic crater. A plaque nearby confirms: you are standing on the rim of a volcano. Below, in the center of the harbour, is the Ōnawe peninsula, a remnant of an ancient volcanic plug and the site of tragic events in 1832 in the history of ngāi tahu. The same view opened up to French settlers in August 1840 — already after the British had occupied the harbour.

A cheese factory operating since 1895 using traditional methods — the only one of nine family cheese-making cooperatives that once existed on the Banks Peninsula to survive to the present day. Milk and finished cheese in those years were transported by boat, then by train to Littleton port — for export to England. In 1950, the local cheese received the Bledisloe Cup at the British Dairy Show — one of the most prestigious awards for cheesemakers of the British Commonwealth. The current building was constructed in 1953; cheese production runs from September to May. Through the window, you can see cheese being made right now, and in the adjacent shop — cheddar and gouda tasting.

The only city in New Zealand where streets are called Rue instead of Street. In 1838, French whaling captain Jean-François Langlois "bought" almost the entire Banks Peninsula from the Māori for 1000 francs — the deposit was paid in hats, shirts, trousers, and one pistol. In 1840, 63 French and German settlers arrived here on the ship Comte de Paris, accompanied by the military corvette L'Aube under the command of Captain Charles Lavaud. The British Britomart got there first and raised the flag on August 10, 1840 — five days before the French warship and a week before the settlers themselves. Learning that the land was already British, none of the colonists agreed to free passage to Tahiti — they stayed and built the French Quarter. The main street Rue Lavaud is named after the captain of L'Aube, Rue Balguerie — after the chief investor of the colonization company; at the corner of these streets stands the Bank of New Zealand building from 1905 in Italian style.

The museum opened in 1964 on Rue Lavaud and combines three historic buildings, including the Langlois-Éteveneaux cottage — built by French colonists in the 1840s and the only surviving residential building of French colonial construction in the country. The exhibition tells the stories of the first settler families, the Māori heritage of the Banks Peninsula, and an unexpected connection to polar exploration: Akaroa native Frank Worsley was captain of the ship Endurance in Shackleton's Antarctic expedition.

The wooden lighthouse of 1878 was not originally located here: for almost a hundred years it stood ten kilometers away, at Akaroa Heads at the entrance to the harbor, protecting ships passing between Littleton and Dunedin during stormy weather. The structure was destroyed twice by southern storms — the second version was made with double cladding. The lighthouse beam, lit in January 1880, was visible for 37 km; the lens came from France, the mechanism from Scotland. In 1980, after 97 years of service, the tower was dismantled into parts and moved to the city center, to Lighthouse Point, where it stands today.

A two-hour cruise on a comfortable catamaran takes you deep into Akaroa Harbour — essentially along the rim of an extinct volcano — past sheer volcanic cliffs, New Zealand fur seal colonies, and rare yellow-eyed penguin colonies. But the main goal of the journey is to meet the Hector's dolphin: the smallest and one of the rarest dolphin species on the planet, found nowhere else in the world except in New Zealand waters. For over 40 years, Black Cat Cruises has explored these waters as a pioneer of New Zealand ecotourism — with a 95–98% chance of encountering dolphins on each voyage.