We woke up to a great morning, clear blue skies and warmer. Today we were heading up to Christchurch, a shortish journey of around 160km. The scenery was different again. We were in a more populated area all the way along, with towns appearing more frequently. About halfway to Christchurch we decided to turn off and explore the Banks Peninsular. This gave us a completely new set of scenery and road conditions. The peninsular was more like a small egg shaped island joined to the mainland and had many coves coming inland. The roads started off just fine, we climbed up to around 660 metres which again gave us some spectacular views.
View From the Passenger Seat
The roads began to narrow, with sharp drops off to the side. Where there were fences along the road it was obvious that their primary function was to protect the sheep from the cars, not to stop cars falling 1000’ down the hill. The following picture was taken from the drivers side, it was a 1000’ drop!
View From the Drivers Side
There were a few craft stores along the way, one of them had some local flowers outside (and quilting material inside).
Protea
On the next leg of the journey the road changed from tarmac to crushed rock. What was equally worrying was that it was single track with very few passing places, but there were still “Road Narrows” signs all over the place. At times we were reduced to first gear, quite an interesting ride, thank goodness for traction control and ABS. In the end we went 11kms on the road and didn’t see another car until we hit the last 100m of the road!
Back onto a hard, but narrow surface I could at least get above 25 kph. One of the bays we saw was Barrys Bay, complete with colourful boathouses.
Barrys Bay Boat Houses
Tomorrow will be a relaxing one with virtually no car travel