two hours

it took me to get home tonight...

These are the beautiful Southern Alps with fresh snow.

They looked like that last week and this morning (except with some low cloud).

At Methven it was clear and bright, not exactly sunny, with little flurries of snow that melted before it hit the ground so there was no sludge to walk through.

A beautiful, cool, fresh day.

Raikaia is 20 minutes from Methven. It's where I turn in from State Hwy 1 towards the Alps.

This evening I left work at 6pm, it was already very dark, so dark that when I walked to the car I could hardly see in the 3 degree temperature. I couldn't even see my breath frosting in the cold air.

If it were light the sky would have looked like this (that's yesterday's sky by the way). It wasn't exactly raining as I neared Rakaia but I should have known from the steady, stream of traffic coming towards me and Methven, yes the bleeding Rakaia Bridge on SH1 was closed.

Very closed, not even some cars across in an orderly spaced, safe manner crossing but closed, closed.

And so after driving for 2o minutes to Rakaia, I was turned around by a sick sounding volunteer fireman who agreed with me that getting home was going to be a bit of a hassle.. about 2 hours of hassle as it turns out.

I just tried to find a map that would show you what a 2 hour detour entails but I slipped down some back roads and there is no map that shows those roads.

I have always driven a lot for my jobs and my be safe in uncertain terrain and detours plan is to follow the trucks.

This worked to a point then I remembered that the trucks would take the back road past Christchurch and I needed to turn back onto SH1 much earlier than that!

I remembered Hororata had a direct road to Dunsandel which is on SH1 and meets up with a back road to Leeston. Good thing Cantanbrian road mapper and namers are predictable and named the roads in the most obvious manner, like where they go to and from.

Pippapotamus, Oti and Dae you will remember the scenic Rakaia Gorge drive we took (not together and at different times), you know that drive into the mountains, along the Rakaia River, on the plains - well imagine that in reverse and in pitch blackness.

Epic is the term I think but I made it home to the fire and a hot bath and to bed in a minute.

Tomorrow it will be like this again and I'll wonder what the big deal was.

Then I will have a grumble about how much better the North Island roads are than ours.