Hello Steemit!

Welcome to #4 of my Fit for Life series, where you'll follow me as I get fit, explore the world and live my best life. The goal is to build the best version of myself by getting fit, learning new skills and developing my life and relationships. Being fit for life doesn't have to be boring - you can get fit in so many different ways so many of these posts won't be in the gym or about training, but will be following a long as I try to get fit while having fun too!

Today I'm going to take you with me as I explore a place really close to my heart - Akaroa in New Zealand's south island.

Peter Pan the Campervan as built HERE by me

Akaroa - Dormant Volcano Kayaking!

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Look at this photo, and then imagine. The island peninsular in the centre of the bay would once have been the centre of this massive volcano. The mountains the rise up around the bay would have been the walls of the volcano and the water fills the now extinct crater. It's hard for the mind to imagine because the volcano was a super-volcano, many miles in diameter. This entire crater would have once been filled with steaming vents of sulphur, ready to explode one day in one giant eruption. Fortunately today, the volcano is inactive, so we get to go and explore its beauty together.

There's a road that runs around the entire perimeter of the crater, a long the tops of the mountains that surround the bay. We took Peter Pan the Van on the entire trip around the top to check out all of the views. As you can see I was designated driver for the day, with my fiance Amy taking many of the photos.

Except when she was getting in front of my lens and looking gorgeous!

Here's another view from a different angle. You can see down in the bay the peninsula that stretches out into the middle of the bay. Where I'm standing would have been the side of the volcano and I'm looking down into the crater. It was an extremely cold day, with the wind whipping off the ocean. You see, Akaroa actually sticks out of the east coast of New Zealand into the South Pacific Ocean. It is a peninsula itself, very near Christchurch, the largest city on the south island.

The water filling the crater is actually sea water, and you can use the crater's bay as a harbour to dock your boat. From there you can sail out of one of the broken walls of the volcano, into the open ocean. In fact, many cruise liners use the crater as a stop off point because it is very deep and sheltered. You can sleep on an ocean liner, in the middle of a volcanic crater!

Going Kayaking in a Volcano

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Once we got down into the crater, the sun came out! Down in the crater we were completely sheltered from the wind and it really felt quite warm so we decided to hire kayaks. We hired a double kayak so we could share the work load, and so one person could paddle while the other looked around and enjoyed the views.

Amy and I in the kayak

We do a lot of walking to keep fit, but that doesn't really work the upper body much. So kayaking was an excellent change and gave us a bit of arm work to keep the upper body working hard too! We had met Amy's sister and boyfriend so we also tried to race them a little bit. You can see them just in front of us there. Turns out if you try to kayak fast, you get very very wet!

Light house guarding the coast line so that boats don't crash

A beautiful heron landing down into the bay, what a lucky shot!

After we'd finished two or three hours of kayaking, we were ready to head back to our campsite, but as we walked back we found this really funny statue! It was a man painting a picture... but you could put your own face in the picture if you angled the camera right. So I gave the guy a few pointers to make sure he got my best side, and then posed for the painting!

Finished off the day with sausages, carrots and broccoli, a simple and healthy dinner to cook while camping!

Climbing Gibraltar Rock

This here is known as Gibraltar Rock - not the Gibraltar Rock owned by the British in Spain, but the same name. Many names in New Zealand have names from Britain because it used to be a British Colony, settled in the 1800s by adventurous people looking to start a new life. If you look closely at the picture, you'll see the Southern Alps that run down the centre of the sound island of New Zealand, right out across the flat plains that surround Christchurch City.

We knew this was going to be a bit of a scramble to get up so we wanted to leave plenty of time! We got here quite early on our way out of Akaroa so we'd have plenty of time to walk over to the rock, and to climb it safely.

There it is! We're coming to climb you!

Looking quite tall and scary to climb right now

We both made it to the top after about half an hour of scrambling and climbing. Obviously there's no photos of that because our hands were a little bit occupied with the climb! Glowing with the exertion, I pulled myself up to the top of the rock and the view was absolutely stunning. You can see behind me that the land drops away down to flat plains, with nothing interrupting the view until you see the snow capped mountains of the Southern Alps.

These flat plains below me were once giant flood plains for the rivers that run off the alps and down to the sea. They've now been drained to make fertile farmland. You can't tell from this photo but it was extremely windy up on top of the Rock because the cold air rushes down off the Southern Alps and straight across the plains of Christchurch. As a result it felt pretty scary to stand up there so we only got one or two photos!

A night under the Milky Way

We finally reached our next campsite after a day of climbing and hiking and we built a fire a long with Amy's sister and her boyfriend, as pictured here. The campsite was right next to a little lake up in the mountains of the Southern Alps in a place called Arthur's Pass. As you can see, it was extremely cold, already reaching below zero so the fire we built was very welcome. In the background you can see that we're now up in the snow capped Southern Alps.

As night fell, we sat around the campfire and talked quietly with each other, enjoying the peace of nature around us. As the fire died down and our eyes adjusted to the dark, we looked up. And we saw the heavens above us, as clear as I've ever seen them. Millions of stars, and the clear red/orange glow of the Milky Way.

I have nothing more to add after these photos. My camera was only just able to capture the brilliance of this view, and even though it was around minus 5 degrees centigrade, we all stood for many minutes just staring up at the night sky. There is very little light pollution in New Zealand, and even less up in the mountains. I'm not sure I'll ever see a night sky like this again - and I only discovered it by getting out and exploring!

Thank you for taking the time to read my newest Fit for Life blog. I really hope you enjoyed it. I'd really appreciate if you could up vote this post and follow me. Most importantly I'd love to chat more with you all so please comment below!

Yours in health,
Coach Ben