Mount Sunday

A couple of weekends ago, Emily and I flew down to Christchurch, Canterbury (South Island) to take a drive out to Mount Sunday, or as you may know it, Edoras from The Lord of the Rings. Now, if you read that correctly, yes, we drove. Meaning me. Opposite side of the road. But that wasn't the hard part... enjoy the photographs below and I'll give some commentary in the captions.

Early on in the drive...

The view near the beginning of our three-hour drive from Christchurch to Mount Sunday.

Me, feeling good about a half hour in. The hardest part of driving on this side of the road was staying near the centre line.

So we weren't really expecting snow...

Home of the Horse Lords.

After a solid hour on an unsealed road, we arrived at Mount Sunday in snowy glory. Much different than we expected, but it was actually quite wonderful getting to see it like we hadn't seen it before. And the mountains were breathtaking as always.

This is the river that we would have had to cross to get to Mount Sunday. Because of the snow we didn't feel comfortable actually going up the hill... there was a huge storm the weekend before that actually forced us to move our trip a weekend later. But this just means that we have something to do next time we come!

Em spent a few days before actually creating the flag of Rohan. Yep, that happened.

So close yet so far away.

So naturally we decided to throw it in the air a la The Lord of the Rings The Two Towers... this was try #8 or something so we decided to stop while we were ahead.

The stream we had to cross to get a closer look... this is coming back. I hopped it, but Em took her shoes off and walked through like a champ because of the precious [camera].

Our aptly-named vehicle, Subarufax.

Time for the slow drive out...

And a view on the way back to Christchurch.

The day went really well. On the road by 8:00am, reached Mount Sunday by 11:00am, and got back to Christchurch in one piece by 4:00pm. I made really detailed directions and had my expert navigator on book. We were a bit disappointed not being able to climb Mount Sunday as we would have been able to without snow, but we got over it pretty quickly. Em and I would make a pretty good team for The Amazing Race, I'd say!

Here's a picture of the landscape not in the snow (and perhaps more familiar to you):

And I think that's the wonderful thing about New Zealand: the landscapes are beautiful in sun, snow, rain, and fog. There's definitely something magical about nature.