Wednesday 11th April 2007. Akaroa, New Zealand.

About 850 AD according to legend, the first ancestor Rakaihautu with his magic digging stick dug out the mountain lakes. During the first six centuries of Moa-hunter occupation the tribal succession of Hawea, Rapuwai and Waitaha exterminated the moa and burnt out the primeval forests to create the open plains known as Nga Pakihi Whaka Tekateka o Waitaha.

The later migration tribes of Ngati-Mamoe (1505-1650) and Ngai-Tahu (1675-1830) crossed from the North Island to introduce kumara cultivation, warfare and intensified working of pounamu (nephrite-greenstone).

When Cook sailed off the coast on February 17th 1770 populous settlements extended from the Clarence River to the Otago Peninsula.

At Akaroa on June 12th 1848, H. Tacy Kemp as an agent of the New Zealand Company purchased the greater part of the South Island from the Ngai-Tahu people.

So today I am heading out to Akaroa the site of France's only colonisation attempt in New Zealand. Enroute I stopped for breakfast in Little River at the Little River Cafe and Store. Whilst in town I also took the opportunity to view the Allan Batt exhibition The Coast.

I spent a lovely day wandering around the town with PJ (my friends Jack Russell Terrier). The two key sites I wanted to visit were Akaroa Head Lighthouse. This light first exhibited in 1880 and it sits some 270ft above sea level with a tower that stands 28ft tall. The white light flashes once every ten seconds and can be seen for 23 miles in clear weather.

The other is St Patrick's on the site where Bishop Pompallier offered his first Mass on the South Island on October 25th 1840. This is the site of the first church in Canterbury (which like the old Cathedral in Canterbury, England was Catholic in origin). It was built in 1841 near Rue Lavaud and named after St Philip and St James. The second church, St Mary's was built near the French Cemetery in 1844 but was damaged by a storm in 1849.

St Patrick's was the third Catholic Church in Akaroa and was built in 1865. It is a stunning colonial and intimate church where the statue of St Theresa Little Flower of Jesus was identical to that in my grandmothers home.

Two priests Frs Comte and Pezant were aboard the naval vessel l'Aube that entered the harbour on the evening of August 15th 1840. The Comte de Paris colonists came ashore on the 19th and on Sunday August 23rd Mass was offered for the first time on shore. Bishop Pompallier arrived some six weeks later.

Akaroa was once the home of the Cocksfoot industry in New Zealand. Cocksfoot is a hardy strain of pasture grass that was first imported from England in 1852 and proved so successful that growing the grass for seed became an industry in itself. In good years as many as 100,000 sacks of seed were shipped off this peninsula to grow pastures all over New Zealand and New South Wales.

Harvesting grass seed was a seasonal job which brought gangs of young men to the Peninsula from all over the country. For a month or so they lived rough, worked hard and hopefully went home with some money saved up. Growing cocksfoot for seed only ceased when more sophisticated strains of grass were imported after World War II.

The Banks Peninsula was formed following violent eruptions by three volcanoes. The craters nurse the harbours of Akaroa and Lyttelton and smaller bays indent the rest of the coastline.

First sighted by Captain Cook in 1770 the peninsula was named for the naturalist Sir Joseph Banks. Then inhabited by Maori of the Ngai Tahu tribe, there numbers were to be severely depleted in 1831 when Te Rauparaha and his warriors attacked the fortified Pa on Onawe Peninsula.

In 1838 Jean Langlois, captain of the French whaling ship Cachalot negotiated with a local Maori chief to buy the Banks Peninsula. On his return to France he formed the Nanto-Bordelaise Company which organised for 57 emigrants to leave on the Comte de Paris accompanied by the warship L'Aube captained by Charles Lavaud for the long journey to New Zealand.

When Lavaud arrived at the Bay of Islands he was told of the terms of the Treaty of Waitangi and consequent British sovereignty over New Zealand. HMS Britomart was immediately sent to raise the British flag at Akaroa. The Nanto-Bordelaise Company sold its assets and land claims to the New Zealand Company in 1849, the French settlers having chosen to remain at Akaroa. They were joined by a larger group of British colonists in 1850.

I lunched at Dooberry's (over-priced, small portions and poor service), before I drove back to Christchurch and returned the hire car.

Tonight I decided to cook at home but not before I walked to Northlands Mall in the pouring rain to get the ingredients for my butter chicken and got soaking wet...and just as I got home my flatmates arrived back with Pizza...so i'll cook another night.