Arthur Pass is Better Than No Pass At All

Trip Start Oct 15, 2007
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Trip End Aug 24, 2008


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Flag of New Zealand  , South Island,
Sunday, March 9, 2008

In order to get to Dunedin from Punakaiki, you can't sensibly hope to avoid Arthur's Pass. 920 metres of Arthur's Pass. We have covered how Lucy doesn't get on especially well with ascent and, well, we were a mite concerned. Fortunately, it was quite late at night when we began the climb, meaning we had nobody else on the road to worry about. We did have to stop part way up for everything to cool down, but then made it to the top with no further trauma.

There's a DOC campsite at the Arthur's Pass tourist office, but, being right by the road, it's not that easy to avoid the glare of sodium lights, so we moved on to the next one, the much more basic, still roadside but much more out of the way "Greyney's campsite". It turned out to be quite nice when we woke up - a grassy clearing with the sun shining through the trees, little birdies twittering, all very English-countryside-in-summertime. Well, to be honest, it was probably very New-Zealand-in-March, but Jacob was feeling a little homesick.

We pushed on, descending into the valley on the other side of the pass, stopping to admire some of the very non-English-countryside scenery - including a rather spectacular boulder field - and make appreciative noises at the "Cor, beautiful, eh?" comments made by the old Kiwi blokes who'd stopped to do the same.

Onwards, onwards, ever onwards...
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