Arthur's Pass

Hello All,

Today is a very sad day for me. It is my last day in New Zealand. However, I have had an amazing time and look forward to returning some time soon. I plan on continuing to write about my journey even after I return to "The States". However, before I leave I wanted to leave you with one last story.

On our last drive in the South Island from Fox Glacier to Christchurch Ken and I had a very interesting experience. We were told by the lady who ran the B&B we stayed in Fox Glacier to be sure to get to Arthur's Pass by 3:00 pm because the fog gets thick and it is a very treacherous road. We took this into account and went on with our day.

On our drive Ken and I stopped to hike the Franz Joesph Glacier which is about a two hour hike. It was a beautiful hike that gets you right to the face of the glacier. Unlike most glaciers in the world this one is expanding at a rate of about 3 feet per day. Right when we reached the face of the glacier and huge boulder came careening down to a loud thud.

After our hike we continue to drive towards Christchurch. We reach the base of Arthur's pass at about 3:30 pm and proceed to make our ascent up the steepest road I have ever been on. Our car was not very powerful. At one point Ken had the gas pedal to the floor and we were going about 10 mph. When we came to the summit of the pass it was about 4:15 pm and there was no fog in sight. We thought we had gotten very lucky. As the drive went on we got into a pretty big valley with snow on the road side. The next thing we knew the snow started to fall. We thought we had just about gotten through all of the snow when we turned a corner and saw a line of trucks stopped. We were flagged over by a road worker and told to put on our snow tire chains.

Ken and I have never put on snow chains before, but we thought how hard can it be. Lets be serious here, Ken and I graduated Prep and went on to very good colleges. So, reading the directions to put on snow chains should be easy. How wrong we were. The directions made no sense, the pictures on the container were wrong and our chains didn't have all of the parts. We tried putting them on for about 30 to 45 minutes before I finally jury rigged the second set of chains. I told Ken to just drive, and if they fall off then I will pick them up and put them in the trunk.

By this time it was dark. We drove about 7KM down the road at about 10 mph when our first set of chains fell off. I was pretty impressed that they had stay on that long. Only about another 1KM down the road the snow stopped and i took the second set off. It was an experience.

When we returned the rental car the next day they had a tire with snow chains on them to show people how to do it. We really did have a bad pair of chains. We were not only missing parts, but our directions were backwards. I think the moral of the story is to practice putting on the chains before you need to use them.

In the end we made it to Christchurch by about 8:00 pm, 2 hours after our scheduled arrival. I would not even consider this a bad part of the trip, rather a cocktail filler I will be telling for many years.

Well, that's all for now. Until next time may you study how to properly put on snow chains.

BC