Xmas day trip

My friend Ian and myself left Wanaka mid afternoon on Xmas day for a bit of an expedition though some remoter parts of Central Otago. In the Nevis valley we encountered heavy rain compromising the 24 fords we had to cross, so we pushed on for longer than we'd intended before making our merry tea, to reach the summit at 1100 meters, that leads to a steep descent into Southland.

We had 30 mins. of sun to set up the truck off the road before it started snowing:


Next morning at 8 am we found ourselves dealing with a couple of inches of new snow:


We sledged the truck back onto the road without the need for chains, Ian mt. biked down and we were off for a coffee at our favourite tea rooms in Athol. We descended back into summer, and it looked pretty odd in the heavy Xmas traffic to have much white stuff melting and flying off the vehicle.

We headed to Queenstown then up to Skippers [Ian again riding] for a cuppa, then back out again in the evening when there is less traffic [it's a single lane road with legendary drop-offs, but is really sweet to drive if there is no on-coming traffic]. Last time I was in there at night with Dougal I had to shift a dead goat that had fallen on the road just before we got there. It was very Monty Python and also very smelly: that pungent goat oder, and I'd forgotten about it, before assisting it on it's descent.

The restored Skippers school house:


We ended up in the Arrow river for our last night, and while I'm talking of Monty Python, when we woke up in the morning there was a ute parked in the river:


Ian rang the number on the door thinking it may have been stolen and abandoned, but no, it was the owner's son who'd got it stuck.

And so ended 3 memorable days!