It's back in the Koru Lounge for me, by the way, for the last time this trip. More food and wine, and here's something cool: a big article in a Wellington newspaper featuring the involvement of someone I know from my hometown (Rocque Berthiaume) in an exhibit in NZ of North Coast First Nations art. I'm delighted to see it.
(Addendum wait, is it an addendum if it's after the first paragraph? Ah well. We're at LAX now with a faster connection but no decent food or drink to be had! Merde. Always trade-offs in life, aren't there?)
Back to the drive. Gosh, well over a week ago. Conrad did all the driving, by the way. Normally he's not one for highway driving, but he's the more confident driver in our relationship, so we left it all up to him. He did a great job, though one curious effect of him wanting to be sure to stay left was that he risked running off the road - shoulders are slim to none on the roads here.
We left grey, cloudy Christchurch, even encountering rain as we headed west across the Canterbury plains and into the foothills of the Alps. A snack of venison pie in a settlement called Springfield held us until lunchtime.
We passed verdant fields
before hitting Castle Hill - it looks like something that should have been in LOTR but apparently wasn't.
And then we came into the broad valley of the Waimakariri River.The train cuts across the valley floor on its route to the West Coast. I'm glad we didn't take the train. We had so many opportunities to take photos, and we did with great zest. It was awesome, truly. And still grey and cloudy.
At Arthur's Pass, we saw breaks in the clouds.
The gloom had us a bit down early in our trip, but now we were hitting some blue skies, and coupled with the scenery, it was uplifting. Lunch was less uplifting though not bad. And this cheeky fellow stuck around long enough for a photo or two. The kea is an alpine parrot and given to eating rubber lining of windshields. Our car was unscathed.
The other side of the pass, the weather improved to the point where, as you've seen, we could wear shorts in Greymouth.
Impressive, no? Look on, for with a minimum of exposition, here are the return trip photos on a far sunnier day. We saw snow caps we hadn't suspected lurked well back of the cloud cover. And if you ask us for the highlight of the trip, this just might be what we tell you.
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