Rivers, valleys and mountains

Yesterday was a quiet day involving church, shopping for perfume and Joanne singing with the music group at church for the first time in New Zealand. She was rostered on for the evening service and we haven't been to an evening service here since we visited Chch and St John's three years ago so that made a nice change. It definitely has a different feel to the 10am service. Joanne definitely enjoyed singing at the front though. It's great that there's a way she can serve that she loves so much.

Today was a little busier though. My dad and I were booked on a jetboat-4WD drive tour thing. We headed out to Springfield to meet the tour bus and got dressed up for the jetboat along the Waimakariri river. It was great actually, very exciting shooting along the rocky river at the bottom of the gorge dodging in and out of boulders and scraping the paintwork of the boat on the rock walls. The driver looked a lot more relaxed than the passengers, especially when he threw the boat into a 360.

After the boat they loaded us all into a Unimog. I was expecting a 4WD vehicle like a Landrover or something, not an ex-military vehicle. It really was quite impressive. Unfortunately we could head up into the hills too much due to the volume of rain that's fallen in the past few days but we still had a great trip along the floor of the valley. I've never seen so much gorse. And I have no idea how three of the four Taiwanese girls on the trip fells asleep as we bounced over the beautiful scenery.

After lunch, which we had in a nice little cafe place back in Springfield, the sky started to clear a bit so I thought we'd take advantage and go on a little tour. Mount Hutt, a ski resort, was reasonably close to where we were so I thought we'd head there. I wasn't really sure quite what to expect as we sped along the Canterbury Plains. Even if it was rubbish when we got there the drive was still worthwhile, especially when we stopped by the Rakaia river for some photos.

What we found, as we turned off the main road, was an unsealed road heading straight up the mountain. We thought the view would be better further up so carried on going. It got steeper and steeper and a little narrow and a tiny bit slippery driving over the shale. When the car behind us turned back I remembered why we'd bought a 4x4. The view was pretty spectacular.

The view stopped being so spectacular once we headed into the clouds. The road kept going though. Up above the snowline we slowly made our way. Eventually it got too much. The clouds were getting thicker, the snow on the road was freezing and someone heading the other way said that 4WD was essential a bit further on. We decided to admit defeat and turn back rather than being brave/stupid and press on. No-one knew we were up there and it wasn't worth the risk getting stuck or something. In the winter when the ski season is open we'll have snowchains on and the road will be better manned. I'll feel safer then. Hopefully the clouds won't be so low too. Driving over snow-covered shale in the fog wasn't something I'd like to repeat too often. It was exhilerating but just a little scary too. It was a long way down off the edge of the road.

Canterbury is such a place of contrasts. Less than an hour after being up a mountain surrounded by snow we were back on the plains surrounded by sheep, cattle and crops. And a giant salmon.