Last week I made the five hour trek from where I currently live (St. Arnaud) back down to Springfield (where I was living for my first two weeks here), to help with a ski race my boss was hosting at Porters Ski Area. While five hours in a little car that I don’t even have an AUX cord for, may not seem like an exciting adventure, ANYTIME you drive ANYWHERE in New Zealand, it is an adventure. Between the obvious incredible scenery that changes before your eyes, to driving on the wrong side of some seriously windy roads and the tiny towns you pass through that you would miss if you blinked, it’s all a very different experience.

First things first, the race was a huge success! Our kids all did really well and maybe more importantly- the race went off without a hitch on a beautiful day full of sunshine and warm (for winter) weather! Race days have always been one of my favorite times to be a coach. While they typically involve a lot more work and organization than your average training day, it is so endearing to watch kids try their hardest through all of their nerves and excitement in often times unforgiving conditions. Ski racing can be a brutal sport, both physically and mentally, so being there to support these kids through every high and low and being able to relate to everything they’re going through is really special for me. I ski raced for a long time and I credit this sport for a lot of who I am, and I can only hope that it does for every kid that puts on a race suit as much as it has done for me. Anyways!! I digress….

The first two times I’ve gone from Springfield to St. Arnaud and vice-versa I went over Lewis pass, which is definitely a beautiful drive and (surprisingly) more populated, this time I decided to drive back by way of Arthur’s Pass. Both drives are about the same length and estimated time, so it made sense to try something new. I also knew that the Arthur’s Pass drive went right past Castle Hill, which I had been wanting to explore since we drove past it briefly a few weeks ago.

Unfortunately, Castle Hill doesn’t break up the drive very effectively since it’s only about half an hour from Springfield. Oh well! The walk from the parking lot takes you along next to some cattle fields and the rock formations start pretty much right there. Now when I say rock formations, I don’t mean meticulous and man-made (or alien, depending on your personal beliefs) like Stonehenge, I mean half of these rocks look like they tumbled to these locations thousands of years ago and the other half look like they suddenly popped up out of the earth and settled into the hillside being perfectly imperfect through no help of human kind. They’re all very smooth and weather-worn into crazy shapes- perfect to climb on and adventure around! Wandering about, it feels like orcs could just pop out at any time from behind the massive boulders… or maybe that’s just my Lord of the Rings obsessed imagination. But seriously, there are some great hiding spots… Aside from the fascinating rocks, the views from up there, looking out over the aforementioned cattle/ sheep fields and off to the snowy mountain peaks of the Southern Alps in the background, were everything that is wonderful about the South Island of New Zealand. Once I was finished nearly getting blown off the rocks (it happened to be extremely windy that day, with rain threatening to start at any moment), I continued along on my road trip.

After a few more mountain views, it wasn’t much farther that the weather went from threatening to rain, to making good on that threat. It absolutely down poured for most of my drive. While this heavily deterred me from doing any of the incredible looking hikes in Arthur’s Pass, I did catch some amazing glimpses of the waterfalls that are scattered throughout the pass. In one particular pull-off point, I even saw a Kea (parrot-like and endangered bird) sitting on the railing. Kea’s have become a new obsession of mine since my first day at Porters when I saw a few of them and learned that they are cheeky little birds that live high in the mountains and are apparently not at all afraid of people. Their feathers are greenish brown on their back, but when they fly, you can see the bright red feathers they have under their wings. They’re known to be so curious that they absolutely wreak havoc everywhere they go- getting into anything left unattended by cars, stealing lunches off the table the second you look away, and being general nuisances. Unfortunately, these silly birds are extremely endangered, so any sightings are especially exciting!

The rest of the drive passed pretty uneventfully as the fog set in and I couldn’t see much besides the road (and even that was hard to see a few times). I have definitely learned to overestimate the amount of time I expect it to take to get somewhere, because I really can’t resist pulling over about every 15 minutes to take pictures. I’ll have to remember that for next time.