Snow!

Last night we heard rumors that a snow was planned for the Christchurch area. Not that it hasn't happened before, in winter 2011 Christchurch got the most snow since 1992 with 30 cm. Now... this is no Boston Nor'easter which could dump 30 cm an hour, however, snow is a big deal to Christchurch. With no proper snow removal equipment and many earthquake damaged roads, the conditions were slightly concerning. Today between 10-18 cm of snow fell in the region. Here are some photos of our area, Sumner Beach.

Queen's Birthday Holiday

We celebrated the Queen's Birthday holiday with a day off work and took a camping/hiking trip to Lake Sumner Forest Park. The hiking route is outlined below, total distance was near 45 km over the entire trip. Our first night we spent at Hurunui Hut, which is pictured below. After depositing our packs at the hut we hiked a 9km round trip to the naturally occurring hot springs and jumped in. We returned to Hurunui Hut for the evening. The next day we crossed over the Hurunui River in search of Mackenzie Hut, which was situated up the river valley. We crossed several high "stream" crossings in the rain, and decided to turn around for the car. Just before we turned back we saw a stunning rainbow, photo and video follows. Sunday night we camped at Loch Katrine and Monday we drove out the 4WD jeep trail back to Christchurch.