christchurch day 6 – up a mountain and modern art

jane asked me if i thought it was a good idea to drive up to a ski resort, and i said i thought it was.

i wanted to see some real snow and real mountains, so off we went.

however, i hadn’t considered that the access road to the ski place would be so steep and so windy and so, well, scary to drive up.

the last windy bit was up a ‘metal road’ which meant it’s a dirt track covered in little stones. and it didn’t have anything to stop you plummeting off the edge if you misjudged a corner or tried to squeeze by a car coming the other way

we made it up alright in our little hire car, but i noted we were parked away from the edge of the car park which was compacted icey snow and an even bigger drop beyond.

our little hire car looked a bit weedy compared to the rest of the cars up there which were 4×4.  and it was actually snowing and the snow was settling a bit on the ‘road’.  i was quite fearful for our descent.

after a coffee in the cafe we had a wander round a bit.  jane met one of her new pupils from school in the cafe and she came over for a chat which was nice

and then with lots of quiet prayers we slowly made our way back down the mountain pass and even managed to pass a few cars without plunging to our death which was nice.

it snowed the next day and the pass would have been impassable for our little car.

still at least the avalanche risk was low

the bird here is a kea which is famous for pulling cars apart (just like the monkeys of the longleat drive through place). 

apparently they go after anything shiny so i was quite lucky to get out alive after waving my camera at it.

luckily this chap didn’t take a shine to our car as he was much too busy pulling bits off this car and seemingly eating the spare tyre.

on the way back to christchurch we briefly stopped in sheffield to get a picture by the sign. 

there seemed to only be one shop in sheffield and that was a pie shop !

we then spent the rest of the afternoon wandering around the modern art gallery which was excellent, but prevented photos

that picture above is the toilet sign, and below is the view from one of the galleries

then it was back home for tea.