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On Sunday, we drove west out of and sunny-but-cold Christchurch on SH73, through
Darfield and
Springfield, towards the Southern Alps. We crossed the awesome
Korowai Torlesse Tussocklands and arrived at the spectacular limestone rock formations of
Kura Tawhiti in time for it to start raining.
Kura Tawhiti is a place that we keep driving past, but as it is usually on our way home from a 7 hour drive we had never actually stopped there. We had also planned to go for a walk in the
Craigieburn Forest Park a few more kilometres up the road, so we continued on and resolved to stop on our way back...
We arrived at the turn off for the forest park just as the rain became extremely heavy and so resolved to take the car for a rally drive up into the mountains. The road was unsealed and quickly became a track and then a river. We were seeking the start of one of several hiking trails but we never actually found them. Instead we drove up until the rain turned into a snow blizzard and then picked the most ridiculously minor track to drive back down to the main road:
Emma: "Slow down a bit"
Tim: "I can't - I'm in first gear and my foot is fully on the brake...we're basically just sliding down the hill"
Emma (with a hint of sarcasm, mixed with a little terror): "Oh good - this is fun"
Tim: "I'm glad we bought a 4x4...oh, wait a minute...we didn't, this is a Toyota Corolla"
Emma (with less sarcasm, and a little more terror): "Nice"
We went back to Kura Tawhiti, and eventually the rain stopped and we went for a really nice walk around the rocks in the sunshine.
We stopped in Springfield on the way back for a pie and admired the large doughnut they acquired to cement their nominal link to
The Simpsons...
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Path to Kura Tawhiti
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non-member comment
I am led to believe that The Simpsons was actually invented in New Zealand as was spaghetti, dover sole, bubblewrap, vertigo and the Doppler effect.