Christchurch

Plans have changed. We’re now in Christchurch.

The journey over was pretty awesome. We took route 73 through the center of the island through Arthur’s Pass. On the way up we stopped at a couple of lookout points. Each one, it seemed, was set not so much to look at the scenery but at the more complex constructions relating to the highway; rock fall covers, waterfalls being diverted over the roadway and a viaduct. At each of these stops we were beset by friendly Kea, NZ mountain parrots, presumably eager to be fed.

We visited the Information Center at Arthur’s pass and decided up hiking up to the Temple Basin Ski Area followed by the shorter trip to the waterfall called the Devil’s Punch Bowl.

The first hike was quite tough with the trail being rubbly and steep all the way from the road to the ski lodge. The ascent took us just over an hour and provided us spectacular views of the pass. The skies up in the mountains were blue but the forecasts were predicting 120km/h winds sometime in the afternoon at these altitudes so we didn’t linger before returning to the car.

The Devil’s Punch Bowl was an impressive waterfall reached by a well made forest trail with plenty of steps and staircases. From our final vantage point below the base of the falls we could see the falls from top to bottom, much turning to vapour. The falls did in fact plunge into a bowl which seemed to spray all the water back up into the air.

In the small village at Arthur’s Pass we stopped for lunch before moving on. The valley on the east side was pretty impressive with a number of lakes and complex river basins.

We arrived at the Christchurch Top 10 campsite in the afternoon and booked in for 3 nights, possibly more. Once the tent was set up Helen decided she’d prefer a site nearer the facilities so after checking to make sure we could move we pulled out all the pegs and in an alarmingly strong wind moved the tent without taking it town to the new site. The maneuver worked and saved us a lot of the time it would have taken to completely dismantle and reassemble the tent.

So now we’re in Christchurch well ahead of when we planned to. We enjoyed the pass which was not on our itinerary. Now we have to work out what to do here as well as how we can ensure visiting the glaciers on a good day.