Off to Tekapo

Friday 17th July: Today was bright and not as cold as of late. In the morning we got a bit of schooling done while two people continued to bang about on our roof, and then packed the motorhome. We were ready to leave by midday. We drove north on the SH1 to St Andrews and then turned left on the Pareora Gorge Road. This is a 36km shortcut through farming land. The first 20km is completely flat and the road is straight. There is a sign at one point naming the place as Sockburn and there are a couple of dwellings where the road bends. Just round the corner there is a ford over the road, but if the ford is flooded then there is a rickety wooden bridge you can take as an alternative. I found myself at the point of choice of the flooded road OR the rickety bridge, max gross weight 3500kg. The motorhome is 3500kg unladen! What do you think I did????
Then for 5km the road climbs and twists and then drops again, along the edge of a hill with a magnificent gorge below on the right. The view is spectacular (although I was more interested in keeping the motorhome on the road!). You also meet a few escaped sheep on the road who then gallop along in front of you, even further away from where they’re supposed to be. The first photo is of the view ahead as you leave the gorge.
The road is then flat until the final climb over a hill to a place called Cave. Here I pulled over and made sandwiches for lunch, which we ate as we drove on. Twenty minutes later we were in Fairlie, and stopped to stretch our legs. Fairlie is a pretty small farming service town and we have stayed here several times. It is exactly 100km from home. From here it is 45km through Burkes Pass to Tekapo. There had been a lot of snow recently and the scenery here is stunning. The views are so extensive that the camera can hardly do them justice.
When we arrived in Tekapo we set up camp in the campsite on the edge of Lake Tekapo. The playground here must have one of the best views in the world. The boys played and then collected some pine cones before cooking tea. The boys went off to bed at 8, just before Steve arrived in the truck from work.
Okay, so I went over the rickety bridge. I sat for a while calculating the relative risk and potential damage to the vehicle, and then decided the best way to make a decision was by ‘eeny meeny miney mo’!!