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Arthur’s Pass

Thursday morning was cloudy as we left Christchurch about 9 am for a drive across the island. Our route would take us through some mountain ranges so we were hopeful not to have rain.

Lots of heavy cloud but no rain.
The pass is only at an elevation of 3,000 ft. so lots of trees on the hills.
First view of multiple snow topped peaks.

The Otira Viaduct is a four span cantilever bridge with a length of 1,440 ft and average grade of 12% on its deck. Each pier is about 130 ft high, supported on excavated cylinders 13 ft in diameter and 98 ft deep.
It’s a deep gorge through the pass

Our final section went through a little town called Moana that sits on the edge of Lake Brunner where we saw a lady enjoying a swim, even though it was only about 19 degrees C and we were in long sleeves!

Not appealing to us for a swim!

We checked in to our hotel for the night – the Sundowner Motel and had a quiet evening to read and get caught up.

Tomorrow will be a long day as we head down the west coast and past some glaciers.

Christchurch and area

We left Hanmer Springs in sunshine and blue skies. The forecast was calling for some clouds and cooler weather later in the day but we had a lovely start.

It was a rocky start as we left Hanmer Springs.
Along the Waiau Uwha River

We also had lots of grazing areas.

This area looked like it might be a fault line. It was along the Waipara Weka Pass.

We soon learned that a pass was not quite like we experience it. It is a way through the mountains, but it doesn’t necessarily mean you have a big climb to the summit.

We arrived in Christchurch just after noon. We had discussed options of what to do and one was a gondola ride to the top of the “mountain” to the south of the city. We headed there but upon further discussion, decided it wasn’t worth paying about $35 each to go up. It wasn’t very high and looking at our map, we could drive some roads that would take us close to the summit.

Coming across the causeway to get to the gondola looking at a suburb of Christchurch.
Overlooking the Port of Lyttelton as we head up the Summit Road.
From Evan’s Pass Road – view of Lyttelton Harbour – love the colour!
View of Lyttelton Harbour from the other side.
Final view before we left the shoreline views

Arriving back into the main part of Christchurch, we filled with fuel, picked up a couple of groceries and then headed to check in to our motel for the night. It was the first we filled the tank more than half and cost us about $80 CND. In New Zealand, the cars we’ve rented have used 91 octane which sells between $ 2.35 and over $ 2.70/ litre. In Canadian prices, that would be between $ 1.95 and $ 2.25/litre. Also, diesel is significantly cheaper. We’ve seen it as low as $ 1.35 CND. We’re thankful to have had hybrid vehicles which have given us an economy of about 5 l/100 km.

Tomorrow we leave the east coast for a while and head west.