Day 13 Hanmer Springs

We woke this morning to another overcast day.  Had a bit of a lie in and only left the unit at about 9.30.  Al convinced me to go and have a massage so we went to book that before finding me something to eat.  I went for a massage at 10.30 and Al went and had breakfast and the best cup of coffee he has had the whole holiday !!!  The lady that gave me the massage was very good EXCEPT she kept taking her hands off to get more oil – as far as I am concerned a BIG no no !!!!  But other than that, it was a lovely way to spend part of our last full day in NZ.

After Al picked me up we had some lunch from the local bakery.  I had a pie (second one in NZ because I am not really a pie person) and it was delicious – I said to Al that I couldn’t decide which of the two pies I had had was better !!!  He had a cup of coffee and said that it was as nice as the cup he had had for breakfast.  How funny that on the last day we are here he has two really good cups of coffee !

Anyway after that we decided to take a drive up to the snowfields near Hanmer Springs.  As a rule we get to a certain height and then I have to lie down because I don’t do heights very well – in fact I don’t do them at all full stop !!!!!  As we got up it flattened out for quite a few kms so I sat up and then when we started to climb again I lay down again.  The mist was coming down and after climbing for quite a while Al pulled over and said to me to sit up but not look down on his side of the car – just to look at the bonnet.  It was starting to snow !!!!  We were very excited because we had wanted to have it snow on us for absolutely ages and we hadn’t been lucky enough to have it happen.  Well we put our jackets on and got out the car (me standing as close to the car as I could !!!) and Al took a photo of the snow as it landed on me.  We caught some on our tongues.  We caught some on our hands and we watched it fall on our jackets and in our hair.  And then we decided that, as much as we wanted to be in the snow when it was falling, we hadn’t had to use the snow chains yet and we didn’t really want to start.  It was also bloody cold and the thought of having to try to work out how to get the snow chains on the wheels on the side of a little mountain road was more excitement than we needed so we turned around, I lay down again and we drove down to where the mountain flattened out where we followed some of the rivers that were flowing.

Snowing on me

Still snowing in me

The water here is just amazing.  In some rivers, it doesn’t matter how shallow or deep they are, the water is as clear as clear can be.  In other rivers, there seems to be a milky green tinge to the water which sounds awful but actually looks quite beautiful as well.

 

Trying to find the snowfields outside Hanmer Springs

We eventually got to a closed gate with a notice on Leave Shut – which to Al means you can go through but shut it after you – and to me means keep out – we kept out because I am a ninny about breaking the rules !!!!  So we turned around here and went as far as we could the other way and then turned and headed back to Hanmer Springs.  We drove around the little town for a while before stopping off and having some dinner and then going back to the unit for a spa and a final pack of everything that had to go home. 

We had a great day with lots of ‘remember whens’ from when we were kids and we did things as a family – it was so funny at times – telling stories about the family and who used to do what or say this or that.